The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday condemned Italy over the 2003 kidnapping by the CIA of an Egyptian imam who had been granted political asylum by Italian authorities. Imam Osama Mustafa Hassan Nasr, better known as Abu Omar, was "abducted" while walking down a street in Milan and taken to a US air force base in Germany and then to Egypt, it said, finding Italy guilty of numerous human rights violations over the case. "The Court found it established that the Italian authorities were aware that the applicant had been a victim of an extraordinary rendition operation which had begun with his abduction in Italy and had continued with his transfer abroad," it said.