U.S. stays mum
The U.S. Embassy in Rome declined to answer questions about whether American agents were involved in Nasr's disappearance. "We do not comment on intelligence matters," said Ben Duffy, an embassy spokesman.

Italian opposition lawmakers have demanded answers from Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government on whether Italian agents or intelligence services played a role. But government ministers have remained tight-lipped.

Shaari, the director of the Islamic cultural center in Milan, said some Muslims are worried they could be kidnapped, too.

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"If they can take Abu Omar, then they can take anyone," he said. "This is an extremely dangerous precedent, both for the Muslim community and for Italy, as a democratic and free state."

Claims corroborated
In late December 2003, Khaled Masri got into a bitter argument with his wife in their home town of Ulm, Germany. They agreed he should get away for a few days, so he bought a bus ticket for Skopje, Macedonia.

At the Macedonian border on New Year's Eve, immigration officials took a close look at his passport and detained him, without explanation. Other agents later interrogated him and pressed him to admit he was a member of al Qaeda, according to accounts Masri gave his attorney and German prosecutors.

Masri protested his innocence, but was kept under guard in Macedonia for three weeks. He said that one day in late January 2004, he was beaten, stripped, shackled and put on a plane that took him to Afghanistan. There, he was kept in a cell under dismal conditions, deprived of water and repeatedly interrogated. Only after going on a hunger strike, he said, did his captors relent; he was flown back to the Balkans in May 2004.

He said he was released near an Albanian border checkpoint, where guards returned his passport and cash. By the time he made it home, even his wife was reluctant to believe his story, thinking he had left her for another woman, according to his attorney.

German police have questioned Masri several times and said they have found his version consistent and believable. Stamps in his passport show he entered Macedonia and left Albania on the dates he described. The bus driver on the route to Skopje confirmed to investigators that Masri had been on board and was taken away by border guards.

Investigators have conducted a chemical radioisotope analysis of Masri's hair. They said the findings back up his story that he was malnourished while in captivity.

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