A Milan judge rejected on Friday a defense motion to suspend a trial involving the alleged " extraordinary rendition" of a Muslim cleric from Milan four years ago.

Preliminary hearings judge Simone Luerti ruled that an Italian government appeal to the Constitutional Court charging prosecutors with overstepping their bounds was not sufficient reason to halt the proceedings, local media reported.

Luerti said the prosecution case "did not appear" to have used documents or other material covered by state secrecy rules.

The trial of 26 CIA agents and the former commander and deputy commander of Italian military intelligence agency SISMI, Niccolo' Pollari and Marco Mancini, will therefore go ahead as scheduled, starting June 8.

Judge Luerti also observed that it was the Italian government itself that had sealed some 80 documents which Pollari wanted to use to prove his innocence.

Also on Friday, on the prosecution's recommendation, Luerti acquitted two SISMI agents, Marco Iodice and Lorenzo Pillinini, who were indicted in February along with their former bosses, the reports said.

The CIA agents will be tried in absent as the government has not forwarded extradition requests - which the United States has in any case said it would not consider.

The prosecutors say the abduction of Egyptian-born cleric Omar was carried out by the CIA with SISMI's help.

Omar was recently released from an Egyptian jail where he says he was raped and tortured.

The Italian Constitutional Court last month started reviewing the government's argument that the prosecutors broke state secrecy laws, needlessly exposed agents and damaged relations between SISMI and the CIA.

Source: Xinhua