Cleric says he can't identify his kidnappers

BERLIN — The Egyptian cleric whose alleged kidnapping by CIA agents led Italy to indict 26 Americans said he would not be able to identify his abductors if he saw them again, according to an interview released Monday.

Osama Hassan Mustafa Nasr was allegedly snatched from a Milan street in 2003 as part of the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program of terrorism suspects.

A Milan judge indicted the Americans — all but one believed to be CIA agents — in February, but Nasr told Germany's Der Spiegel magazine's online edition that he could give few details about them.

Italian prosecutors say Nasr was taken to Aviano Air Base near Venice, then to Ramstein Air Base in southern Germany, and finally to Egypt, where he was imprisoned for four years. Nasr has said he was tortured.

Suspect: Fake bombs were mental weapon

LONDON — A man accused of conspiring to bomb London's public-transport system told a court Monday that he deliberately made fake devices that were not meant to explode but would spread fear and panic in protest against the invasion of Iraq.

Muktar Said Ibrahim, 29, said he learned how to make the devices on the Internet, downloading a Web video on which an Arabic-speaking man in a ski mask described how to make explosives from hydrogen peroxide, an easily obtained household chemical. Ibrahim and five other men are being tried on charges of conspiring to bomb the British capital's transport system.

"I saw him be decapitated"

ROME — An Italian journalist held for two weeks in Afghanistan said after his release Monday that he saw his captors cut off the head of one of the two Afghans kidnapped with him and thought he would be next to die.

In an interview with RAI Tg3 News, Daniele Mastrogiacomo described a harrowing experience. "I saw him be decapitated," he said.

He said the kidnappers threw the Afghan to his knees and suffocated him in the sand as they cut his head off.

Seattle Times news services