MILAN, Italy (AFP) - An Italian judge was to reach a verdict Wednesday in the landmark trial of 26 US secret agents and seven of their Italian counterparts in the 2003 abduction of a terror suspect in Milan.

The trial, which opened in June 2007, is the first involving the actual alleged "extraordinary rendition" of a terror suspect in a covert CIA programme in which scores of people are thought to have been transferred to countries known to practise torture.

"For us this first case puts the war on terror on trial," said Joanne Mariner of the rights group Human Rights Watch after prosecutor Armando Spataro made an impassioned closing speech.

Twenty-five CIA agents and a US air force colonel were tried in absentia in the case, which also involved seven Italian secret service officials including the former head of military intelligence, Nicolo Pollari, who was forced to quit over the affair.

Judge Oscar Magi, thanking the court-appointed lawyers defending the Americans for their diligence, said he would pronounce his verdict after 5:00 pm (1600 GMT) on Wednesday.

Osama Mustafa Hassan, an imam better known as Abu Omar, was snatched from a Milan street on February 17, 2003, in an operation allegedly coordinated by the CIA and the military intelligence agency SISMI.

The radical Islamist opposition figure, who enjoyed political asylum in Italy, was allegedly taken to the US air force base in Aviano, northeastern Italy, then flown to the US base in Ramstein, Germany, and on to Cairo.

The imam's suspected captors failed to take many standard precautions, notably speaking openly on cell phones, leaving investigators to suspect that the Americans had cleared their intentions with senior SISMI officials.

Magi also hailed as "very important" the fact that the case ran through to a conclusion.

The trial was delayed as successive Italian governments sought to have it thrown out as a threat to national security. Defendants argued that state secrecy rules prevented them from being able to prove their innocence.

The issue went before Italy's Constitutional Court, which agreed that part of the investigation had violated state secrecy provisions but said the prosecution could use evidence obtained correctly.

Spataro on Wednesday rejected the court ruling, saying: "There is no legal structure under which SISMI and the CIA could agree to carry out a kidnapping. It is absolutely against Italian law."

"We certainly hope that these activities cannot be hidden because of state secrets," said Mariner, director of HRW's Terrorism and Anti-Terrorism Programme.

"This court will interpret the breadth of the state secrecy doctrine decided by the Constitutional Court and could conceivably bar a lot of evidence, which would be extremely disappointing," Mariner told AFP.

Spataro is seeking a 13-year jail term for former CIA chief Jeff Castelli and Pollari for their alleged role in the kidnapping.

He also argued that two former Italy-based CIA officials, Robert Lady and Sabrina De Sousa, should serve 12 years, while the officers believed to have been directly involved in seizing Abu Omar should spend 11 years behind bars.

The prosecutor asked for charges to be dismissed against three of the Italian defendants after the Constitutional Court ruling in March.

Abu Omar's lawyer is demanding 10 million euros (14 million dollars) in damages for the kidnapping and transfer to a high-security prison outside Cairo where he says he was tortured.

Spataro lamented what he called the "twisted logic" behind an operation that broke the law as well as sending a suspect to endure torture.

"This only encourages the multiplication of terrorists," said Spataro, who became known for his work against the left-wing militant group the Red Brigades that was active in the 1970s.