MILAN (Italy), Feb 16: An Italian judge on Friday ordered 26 Americans to stand trial for the kidnapping of an Egyptian imam, setting up the first criminal examination of the CIA's ‘extraordinary rendition’ programme.

Italy's former military intelligence chief Nicolo Pollari and his deputy were indicted along with five other Italians in the case, Pollari's lawyer Titta Madia confirmed to AFP.

“We are disappointed but confident that testimony will show General Pollari's opposition to any illegal activity,” he said.

Osama Mustafa Hassan, an Egyptian imam, was allegedly abducted on a Milan street on February 17, 2003, and taken to a high-security prison outside Cairo where he claims he was tortured. He was released on Sunday.

Judge Caterina Interlandi ordered the trial to start on June 8, though none of the accused US agents is expected to return to Italy. Italian press reports say most of the suspects acted under false names and are in the US.

Of 35 people investigated in the case, all but two were indicted, including 25 CIA agents, a US air force colonel and Pollari, who was fired in November over the affair and said he was being used as a scapegoat.

A journalist and a police officer who cooperated with the investigation have been given reduced sentences in exchange for guilty pleas, according to a source close to the case.

The journalist will pay a fine, and the police officer -- who admitted to stopping Hassan at the start of the abduction operation -- was given 21 months in jail, a sentence that is likely to be commuted.

The biggest case against US intelligence agents staged in an allied country threatens embarrassing new revelations over the CIA programme in which terror suspects were seized in one country and taken to another. The tactic has been among the most controversial used in the US war on terror.—AFP