Italy's president on Friday pardoned a U.S. Air Force officer convicted of kidnapping an Egyptian Muslim cleric who was taken away for interrogation on a CIA "rendition" flight.

Such covert flights were among the tactics used to wage the "War on Terror" under the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush, after the 9/11 attacks. They have been condemned by human rights groups as a violation of international agreements.

Italian President Giorgio Napolitano said he had pardoned Colonel Joseph L. Romano, who was the only person not a member of the CIA among 23 Americans sentenced for the kidnapping of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr in Milan in 2003.

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Romano's lawyer had requested the pardon. The clemency was granted because the United States and Italy are close allies that "share the common goals of promoting democracy and security" around the world, a statement from the president said.

The Egyptian cleric, also known as Abu Omar, was secretly flown to Egypt for interrogation, where he says he was tortured for seven months. He was a resident in Italy at the time of the abduction.

Italy was the first country to convict American nationals for their involvement in a rendition.

Romano and 21 others received seven-year jail terms for kidnapping, while the former CIA Milan station chief Robert Seldon Lady was sentenced to nine years in jail.

All were tried in absentia and the Italian government has so far shown little indication it will ask for them to be extradited to serve the terms. No reason was given for why Romano was awarded clemency while the 22 CIA members were not.

U.S. President Barack Obama has tried to distance himself from heavy-handed intelligence tactics employed by the Bush administration, and ordered the CIA to close its long-term prisons in 2009.

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An imam died of smoke inhalation Monday evening in Brussels, the Belgian capital, after a man threw a firebomb through the window of a Shiite mosque, the Belgian newspaper La Derniere Heure reported. The mosque was nearly entirely burned down, the Agence France-Presse reported. 

Worshipers were waiting to pray when someone entered with a bag filled with fuel, an eyewitness told a local state broadcaster, according to the BBC. He then flung the bag into the center of the room.  

A crowd of about 50 people gathered and firefighters tried to revive the imam, but he died on site. He was 46.

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A suspect was caught not far from the mosque, La Derniere Heure reported. A second person was injured.

Belgium has about half a million Muslims out of a population of 11 million, Reuters reported. In December, a gunman killed seven people after shooting into a crowd of Christmas shoppers in Liege, in eastern Belgium.

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