Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz added: "As popular as she is here and as pretty as she is here -- because that's what this is all about, if
"The Italian legal system, though I don't love it, is a legitimate legal system and we have a treaty with Italy so I don't see how we would resist," he told AFP.
"We're trying to get (fugitive NSA leaker Edward) Snowden back -- how does it look if we want Snowden back and we won't return someone for murder?" he asked.
There is a valid extradition agreement between Italy and the U.S., but the U.S. has not set much of a precedence in returning suspects for such matters. Italians point to a number of high-profile cases over the years in which they say American suspects have been accused of wrongdoing and criminal acts, but have been let off lightly.
In 1998, an American military jet clipped a ski lift cable, sending a gondola of 20 passengers to their deaths in the Italian Dolomite Mountains.
Italian prosecutors wanted the crew of the jet tried in Italy, but an Italian court ruled they should face courts-martial in the U.S., in accordance with NATO treaties. The aircraft's pilot and navigator were found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter, even though the military admitted the plane had been flying lower and faster than authorized.
When it emerged that a video that captured the accident from inside the plane had been destroyed, they were dismissed from the Marine Corps. Italians were outraged, referring to the incident as the "massacre of Cermis."
In another incident that raised tensions, Egyptian cleric Abu Omar was seized off the streets of Milan in 2003 and smuggled to Egypt, where he says he was tortured and released four years later.
Although Italy did not request the extradition of any of the suspects, 22 CIA agents were convicted in absentia of the kidnapping and sentenced to prison time for their role in the abduction, but none ever served time in Italy.
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