This Is What You Get For Torture

Whaaa…? Could it be that a CIA Operative is actually going to Prison for “Extraordinary Rendition”?

Sabrina De Sousa is one of 26 CIA employees convicted in absensia of kidnapping Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, aka Abu Omar off the streets of Milan, “The cleric was flown to Egypt, where he was beaten and subjected to electric shock but eventually released.”

De Sousa’s extradition and potential imprisonment would be an astonishing turn of events for a case that raises major questions about how much diplomatic protection CIA case officers abroad possess when carrying out operations sanctioned by their superiors. During her CIA tenure, De Sousa was registered in Italy as a State Department officer at the U.S. Consulate in Milan. She did not work as an “NOC” — a nonofficial cover operative.

According to her and her attorneys. In fact she was a paid CIA Case Officer and did not report to the U.S. Counsel in Milan, the Ambassador to Italy, or the State Department. This is proven by the fact that when she resigned from U.S, government service in 2009 the CIA was her employer of record and the fact that when, after her conviction, she applied to the State Department to confirm her diplomatic status, they refused. Italy’s Supreme Court upheld her conviction and De Sousa appealed the U.S. State Departments characterization of her employment. Non Official Cover operatives, NOCs, are paid employees of the CIA are are not entitled to diplomatic protections and courtesies.

The following statement, by her, is entirely a lie, except for this part- “This rendition was funded by Congress with approval of senior government officials in the U.S., Italy and Egypt.”

“Those of us who were convicted were accredited diplomats and declared to the Italian government,” De Sousa said. “We instead find ourselves treated like NOCs with our U.S. government affiliation disavowed. I would have never joined the CIA if I was told there was a remote possibility that I would never see my mother in Goa again and not travel abroad. This has set a terrible precedent. This rendition was funded by Congress with approval of senior government officials in the U.S., Italy and Egypt.”

Yup.

Well, maybe you should have thought about that before you joined the CIA and became complicit in torture.

She never bothers to deny that her employer was the CIA, just whines because the State Department won’t pretend she was something she wasn’t, and is filing FOIA requests to get proof that the United States lied to her about the level of protection there was for her war criminal activities. I feel no more sympathy for her than I do for Ilse Koch.

Portugal’s Supreme Court has decided to extradite her but “also reiterated a condition set by the lower courts — and guaranteed by Italy in De Sousa’s European arrest warrant — that once she arrives in Italy, she must be given another trial or a chance to appeal with new evidence, and the ability to call Italian and U.S. witnesses, because she had been tried in absentia.”

They are in fact under no obligation to do so.

She should be arrested on arrival at the Italian border, taken to prison, and serve every hour of her 4 year sentence grateful that it’s not longer. I hope someday, in some way all the rest up and down the Chain of Command and their Accomplices after the Fact receive the same kind of justice.

Laura Pitter, a senior national security counsel at Human Rights Watch, did not want to comment on the merits of De Sousa’s case but said she does not think she should be the first and so far only person held accountable for the CIA’s rendition program, given her allegedly minor role. “It should be the senior officials and contractors involved in authorizing and implementing the program and those who actually inflicted the torture on individuals in U.S. custody,” she said.

All quotes from Ex-CIA officer faces extradition from Portugal to Italy for alleged role in cleric’s rendition By Ian Shapira, April 21 at 12:41 PM, Washington Post.