Ex-CIA officer faces extradition to Italy after final appeal rejected | The Guardian |
A former CIA agent says she will be extradited to Italy to serve a prison sentence for her part in the US extraordinary renditions programme after Portugal’s constitutional court rejected her final appeal.
Sabrina de Sousa told the Associated Press she was waiting to be told when she would be taken to Italy, where she was convicted in absentia and has a four-year sentence to serve.
Since her arrest in Lisbon in October on a European arrest warrant, De Sousa has lost her extradition fight at a lower Lisbon court and her appeal against that decision to the Portuguese supreme court.
De Sousa was among 26 Americans convicted for the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric, Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, in Milan, when she was working in the country under diplomatic cover. She insists she was not involved in the abduction.
The constitutional court said in a ruling posted on its website that De Sousa’s appeal was rejected.
Under Portuguese legal procedure, the constitutional court will sends its decision back to the lower court. That court then informs the police, who set in motion the extradition process in conjunction with Italian authorities.
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Her Italian lawyer has previously said he was hopeful of obtaining clemency from Italy’s head of state in the case, which has also implicated Italy’s secret services and proven embarrassing to successive Italian governments. President Sergio Mattarella has granted clemency to other defendants convicted in the case.De Sousa said she sent a letter to Pope Francis, through the Vatican’s embassy in Lisbon, urging him to speak out against the extraordinary renditions used by the CIA after the 11 September 2001 terror attacks. The pontiff has already condemned the practice in a 2014 speech.
Former CIA Agent to be Extradited to Italy
