Busted

Sabrina de Sousa, a 60-year-old former CIA officer who was convicted in absentia in Italy in 2009, faces a four-year prison term for her alleged role in the kidnapping of a radical Egyptian cleric named Abu Omar, who was grabbed off the street in Milan by CIA officials in 2003 and sent to Egypt, where he was imprisoned, interrogated and allegedly tortured.

The extradition of De Sousa and her possible imprisonment in Italy would mark the first time that any CIA officer connected to the highly classified and controversial Bush-era extraordinary rendition programme faced jail.

[...]

[De Sousa] is facing imminent extradition to Italy from Portugal after a high court in Lisbon rejected a last-minute legal appeal.

[...]

"It is a little unnerving,” De Sousa said. “I actually feel more for my family, I just explained to them that it has to be done. It is an enormous injustice.”

  Guardian

In comparison to Abu Omar's ordeal?

The development marks an extraordinary turn of events in a case that had essentially been dormant for years, even after a dogged and independent Italian prosecutor in Milan, Armando Spataro, pursued the Abu Omar case, exposing the classified programme to the world. The prosecutor’s investigation led to the conviction in absentia of De Sousa and more than 20 other American officials. While De Sousa was convicted under her real name, she told the Guardian that most of the others were convicted under their aliases, and are therefore free to travel the world without fear of being detained.

And I bet most, if not all, of them are men.

The case was thrown back into the spotlight late last year after De Sousa, who has dual US and Portuguese citizenship, made the risky decision to leave the safe confines of the US and travel to Portugal, where she was still subject to an EU arrest warrant.

[...]

Italy’s president, Sergio Mattarella, granted partial pardons to two other defendants in the Abu Omar case late last year, but has so far not responded to a request for clemency by De Sousa.

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De Sousa, a vocal critic of the CIA and US government, has said she is a low-level and innocent scapegoat who has been sacrificed by the US government while high-ranking officials who executed the extraordinary rendition programme have received impunity.

And I have no doubt she is right.

There have been no public signs of support for her case by the US government.

Which should not be a surprise to her.

The former CIA officer, who was working in Italy under diplomatic cover, has said she took part in early stage discussions of the extraordinary rendition programme in general but not specifically about Abu Omar.

So, kind of like Al Capone getting busted for tax evasion.  You pay the piper when you dance.  You weren't born yesterday.  You know - or should have known - how the CIA operates.  Did you volunteer or did they threaten you to get you to join?  I'm not feeling terribly sympathetic.

De Sousa, who is Catholic, told the Guardian that she has written a letter to Pope Francis, urging him to denounce the rendition programme employed by the CIA after the 11 September terror attacks against the US.

The one she took part in. But don't let me go to jail.

Abu Omar, who now lives in Egypt, has also come to De Sousa’s defence, saying he believed she ought to be pardoned and that she had helped to expose the “injustices” in his case.

I take it all back.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.