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SOURCE
http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/cia-agent-convicted-in-italy-for-kidnapping-detained-in-portugal-151012?news=857615
CIA Agent Convicted in Italy for Kidnapping Detained in Portugal
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Monday, October 12, 2015
A former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer who was convicted in absentia for the kidnapping of a terror suspect in Italy was prevented from leaving Portugal and may be sent to Italy to serve her sentence.
Sabrina De Sousa was convicted, along with 22 other Americans, of participating in the abduction from a Milan street of Egyptian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, in 2003. He was taken to Egypt, where he was tortured, according to his wife and Italian prosecutors. He was freed in 2007.
De Sousa says she wasn’t involved in the kidnapping, but did serve as an interpreter during its planning stages, according to The Washington Post. Since she and the other Americans—most of them CIA officials— were convicted by the Italian court in 2009, De Sousa has been outspoken in her criticism of the U.S. government’s seeming abandonment of those involved in the kidnapping.
She told the Post that she knew that she could be detained by traveling to Portugal, but wanted to bring the matter to a head, either with the United States granting her diplomatic immunity or by Italy reinvestigating the kidnapping or granting her and those also convicted clemency.
“This has gone on for 10 years,” De Sousa said. “It’s impacted my life. I’ve got relatives in Europe, and I don’t see any reason to give that up. The rendition should have never taken place, and we were all thrown under the bus for it.”
De Sousa expressed surprise that it took Portuguese authorities as long as it did to detain her. “The interesting part of it is the timing,” De Sousa told the Post. “Why now? When I came into Portugal I did not get detained. I have been here for several months and the Italians never asked Portugal to surrender me to Italy. When was it put into their system at the airport? Someone in Italy seemed to know I was traveling.”
She said she was prohibited last Monday from leaving the country, but after a court hearing only had to surrender her passport and was not jailed.
De Sousa left the CIA in 2009 and sued to get diplomatic immunity to protect her from the Italian charges, but her case was dismissed.
Only one other defendant in the case has come close to being extradited. Robert Seldon Lady, who was the CIA’s station chief in Milan at the time of the kidnapping, was detained in Panama two years ago at Italy’s request but was released. One of the defendants, Col. Joseph L. Romano III, a retired Air Force commander, was pardoned by the Italian court in 2013.
SOURCE
http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/cia-agent-convicted-in-italy-for-kidnapping-detained-in-portugal-151012?news=857615
The Rendition Project UK
Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, a.k.a. Abu Omar, was born in Egypt in 1963. Having been detained and tortured by the Egyptian regime for his involvement in Egypt’s militant Islamic Group, he was granted political asylum in Italy in 2001. In the lead up to the Iraq war of 2003, he campaigned against the invasion and occupation of Iraq. This sparked surveillance by the Italian authorities of his activities, and investigations into the contacts he kept. The Italian authorities alleged that he was recruiting fighters to go to Iraq and resist the occupation. He denies this.
On 17 February 2003 Nasr was apprehended in Milan by a man in a police uniform. He was bundled into a van where men in balaclavas beat, blindfolded and restrained him. The journey lasted several hours, and on arrival at what is now known to be the US airbase at Aviano, Nasr was prepared for his rendition to Cairo, via the Ramstein airbase in Germany. Common with other rendition victims, his clothes were cut off, a suppository was forcibly inserted into his rectum, his head was taped leaving holes only for his mouth and nose, and he was forced onto a CIA-contracted Gulfstream IV jet with registration number N85VM, operated by Richmor Aviation.
EXTRACT - SOURCE
http://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/prisoners/abu-omar.html
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COMMENT
These people don't deserve immunity or clemency, but they'll get it because we live in a corrupt world in which corruption and might is right.
Even if this guy had been organising a resistance to the 2003 US invasion, how does that make him a 'terrorist' when the US invasion of Iraq was illegal and on false pretexts?
Robert Seldon Lady was released by Panama and Col. Joseph L. Romano III was pardoned by Italy, so I don't see Italy playing hard ball regarding De Sousa.
Everybody's corrupt, but I get the impression that Italy and Latin America are that bit extra corrupt and somehow linked and closely linked to the US and CIA, so why are they even bothering to go through this farce of convicting the CIA?
Found the torture and rape of this guy rather disturbing.
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