You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Submit your comments on this article
Europe
Ex-CIA agent convicted over imam kidnapping to face sentencing
2017-07-01
[IsraelTimes] Sabrina de Sousa hopes to avoid serving prison time for 2003 abduction of Abu Omar authorized by US and Italia.

A former CIA agent who was found guilty of kidnapping an Egyptia holy man by an Italian court more than a decade ago said Thursday she intended to return to Italia to face her sentence, but hopes to avoid prison.

Sabrina de Sousa, who holds dual American and Portuguese nationality, said she would leave Portugal to face the Italian courts over the abduction of radical preacher Abu Omar
...whose mother knew him as Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr. He was involved with Ansar al-Islam, a Kurdish Islamic group in northern Iraq that the United States said had ties with Saddam Hussein's regime, the Taliban, and Al Qaeda. In 2013 Italy reactivated the case against him in absentia. At the time it did not seem likely Egypt would give up its native son to serve his sentence...
from a Milan street in 2003 in an operation allegedly led jointly by the CIA and the Italian intelligence services.

She has already gone on trial in absentia along with 22 others in what were the first legal convictions in the world against people involved in the CIA’s extraordinary renditions program that followed the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"I’m going back to Italia next week to serve a sentence that will be determined by the Italian courts," 60-year-old de Sousa told AFP, saying she hoped to be released on parole and carry out community service.

At the end of February, Italian President Sergio Mattarella granted her "a partial pardon of one year’s imprisonment," reducing her jail time to three years of a lenient form of sentence that does not necessarily need to be served behind bars and allows the convict to work.

Italia then withdrew the European arrest warrant issued after her arrest in October 2015 at Lisbon airport.

In an email sent from the US where she was preparing to have surgery, de Sousa said she would like to do her community service in Portugal but added that "even if I could... I would have reason to be very concerned about what would happen to me."

"Portugal after all threw me in prison for 10 days with no plausible reason for doing so."

Omar was kidnapped on February 17, 2003, before being transferred to Egypt where his lawyers say he was tortured, in a case that highlighted the controversial secret renditions of suspected turbans by the United States and its allies.

"This operation was approved by the highest levels of the US government," said de Sousa.

"What US officials in Washington and some in the Italian Government were told was that Abu Omar was a dangerous terrorist; and with that justification the CIA chief in Rome obtained the necessary approvals," she added.

"This obviously turned out not to be the case and Abu Omar was released from an Egyptian prison. As with most cover-ups lower level officers like myself end up paying the price for decisions for which we had no input."
Posted by:trailing wife

#4  Might be an insert?
Posted by: Skidmark   2017-07-01 16:27  

#3  Looks like a so far successful legal strategy to drum up sympathetic press for a non-incarceration sentence with the ultimate goal of an issue-free permanent residency in Portugal.

Only explanation for ever going to Portugal after being tried in abstentia, and her leaving the US now. Wonder who's paying the legal fees?
Posted by: brujotejano   2017-07-01 11:53  

#2  Uhm...why is she going back?
Posted by: Skidmark   2017-07-01 10:22  

#1  I vuz just following orders....
Posted by: Ebbasing Clerens6875   2017-07-01 01:22  

00:00