Sabrina de Sousa, a 60 years old former Milan U.S. consular official who has been fighting extradition in Portugal for years has exhausted her appeal rights and is set to be extradited to italy.She was convicted in 2009 by an Italian court for her role in the abduction of an Egyptian who held an Italian asylum passport.
Diplomatic Immunity
According to the New York Times, Sabrina, who is Portuguese-American, worked for the CIA under the management of Robert Seldon Lady in Milan. She has claimed to be innocent and alleges she was on a ski trip when the abduction took place and sued the United States State Department claiming the right for diplomatic immunity.
She also wrote a letter to the Pope asking for support on pressuring governments to eliminate the rendition programme.
UN denounced the program
Abu Omar torture and abduction case by CIA agents in Europe has caused much polemic in one of the most documented cases of abduction by American officials. The program called "extraordinary rendition" is most notoriously carried out by the United States in efforts to prevent terrorist attacks, the program comprises on abducting suspects and taking them to another nation in order to be interrogated via torture. The UN has long considered this program a crime against humanity.
The abduction resulted in 4 years imprisonment
Abu Omar who was an imam in Milan, Italy was abducted on February 2003 by CIA agents in Italy and driven to a US-Italian military base 4 hours away, and subsequently transferred to an Egyptian prison where he alleges to have suffered various forms of torture including electrical shock to the genitals and rape.
He lost hearing while imprisoned and was found to be innocent, and eventually released in February 2007.
Prosecution of CIA agents
The case resulted in the persecution of several agents involved in the operation, including 9 Italian citizens, 22 were convicted. Former Milan CIA station chief Robert Seldon Lady received eight years in prison, but still currently hiding in the United States. The American government is yet to comment on the case.
