May 28 (Bloomberg) -- Italian police used mobile phone records and hotel information to identify two dozen alleged U.S. intelligence agents accused of kidnapping an Egyptian cleric in Milan, the city's top anti-terrorism investigator said.

Police traced calls made in the part of Milan where Osama Mustafa Hassan Nasr was abducted in February 2003, Bruno Megale, head of the city's anti-terrorism police squad, known as Digos, said in court testimony there today. Calls made from those numbers to local hotels were linked to U.S. citizens who were guests there, he said.

Twenty-five suspected Central Intelligence Agency operatives, a U.S. military officer and Italy's former intelligence chief are on trial for abducting the Egyptian cleric, who's also known as Abu Omar, five years ago.

``We determined that the U.S. citizens had several mobile phone numbers and some were used during the kidnapping,'' Megale said. ``The phones were used to contact various U.S. numbers in Virginia and the CIA station chief in Milan.'' The CIA's headquarters is in Langley, Virginia.

Megale said police recognized the CIA station chief's cell phone number from call lists because he was their main contact for terrorism issues.

Contacts With CIA

``Megale has to clarify what contacts there were between Digos and the CIA,'' defense lawyer Titta Madia said during a break in the trial. Madia is part of the legal team defending Italy's former intelligence chief Nicolo Pollari.

Lawyers for Pollari and Marco Mancini, his former number two, say their clients weren't involved in the kidnapping. The alleged CIA agents are being tried in absentia since they have not returned to Italy. They have court-appointed lawyers. George Little, a CIA spokesman, declined to comment on the case.

The alleged agents' names and U.S. passport numbers were obtained from their registration records at luxury hotels in Milan, Venice and Florence, Megale said. The suspects also provided airline frequent flier numbers with their reservations, he said.

Prosecutors claim that Abu Omar was flown to Egypt and tortured during questioning there. The case is the first legal challenge to the U.S. policy known as extraordinary rendition, in which American authorities have allegedly sent suspected terrorists to other countries without legal proceedings.

Armando Spataro, the prosecutor in the case, has said that Abu Omar would be in jail in Italy for inciting terrorism if he hadn't been kidnapped. The cleric was under surveillance by Italian police at the time of his abduction. Abu Omar is still in Egypt.

Italian police began investigating Abu Omar and three others in 2001 for recruiting terrorists and helping them reach northern Iraq, Megale said.

Investigators were delayed about nine months in their search for Abu Omar's kidnappers because they initially began examining phone records for the wrong month, Megale said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Anthony DiPaola in Rome at adipaola@bloomberg.net; Tommaso Ebhardt in Milan at tebhardt@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: May 28, 2008 10:37 EDT