CIA agent to serve six years in Prison for rendition participation

[Thanas]

...not in the USA, of course.

Ex-CIA agent loses extradition appeal in Portuguese court

Judges reject Sabrina de Sousa’s case against extradition to Italy over her role in ‘extraordinary rendition’ programme

Portugal’s supreme court has rejected a former CIA operative’s appeal against extradition to Italy to serve a six-year sentence for her part in an “extraordinary rendition” programme.

A court official said Sabrina de Sousa’s only remaining recourse is to appeal to Portugal’s constitutional court, arguing her extradition order is unconstitutional.

De Sousa was among 26 Americans convicted in absentia in Italy for the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric in Milan, when she was working in the country under diplomatic cover.

Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr – known as Abu Omar – was kidnapped by US agents in 2003 while walking down a street in Milan, allegedly with the knowledge and help of at least some Italian authorities.

Omar had been given political asylum in Italy in 2001 but fell under the suspicion of Italian – and, separately, US – authorities for his links to fundamentalist networks.

He was then flown to Cairo via the Ramstein US airbase in Germany, and was handed over to Egyptian authorities, who allegedly detained, interrogated and tortured him until his initial release in April 2004.

A lower court ruled in January that De Sousa should be turned over to Italy following her arrest at Lisbon airport in October on a European warrant.

De Sousa, who was born in India and holds both US and Portuguese passports, was on her way to visit her elderly mother in India with a round-trip ticket when she was detained.

The extraordinary rendition program was part of the anti-terrorism strategy of the US administration following the 9/11 attacks. Years later, Barack Obama ended the program.

De Sousa’s Portuguese lawyer, Manuel Magalhaes e Silva, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

One down, hundreds to go. Hope Justice keeps having a long memory.

[K. A. Pital]

She's not an "ex" agent though, that "ex" reference whenever a CIA bastard is brought to justice is simply wrong - while she only was disowned because of the pending investigation - most likely, anyway, like a great majority of the agents the Criminal Illegitimate Abductors. As such, it is an actual convicion of a CIA agent.

But we all know Americans should be immune to prosecution - hahaha, well, not always. If caught outside the USA, fuckers will serve.

[Adam Reynolds]

One wonders if the US government will try and get her out of it. One also wonders why she went through Europe in the first place, presumably knowing that she had charges filed against her in Italy.

[Tanasinn]

Presumably the U.S. government will exercise some diplomatic muscle to get her out, since publicly burning your intelligence assets tends to be a poor way to keep them in the long run.

[Knife]

If she was under diplomatic cover, would she not be immune to prosecution due to diplomatic immunity?

[Gerald Tarrant]

If she was under diplomatic cover, would she not be immune to prosecution due to diplomatic immunity?

I'm fairly certain diplomatic immunity doesn't cover kidnapping. There was a case 2 or 3 years ago where an Indian diplomat at the UN faced prosecution for visa fraud (the case was a little more complicated she was accused of forcing her domestic help to accept sub-minimum wage payment). If fraud of that nature wouldn't fly in the US I think we've got a hard time protesting a prosecution for kidnapping.

[Knife]

I'm hardly an expert on this issue, but my understanding is that diplomatic cover meant diplomatic immunity and the best a country could hope for was just an expulsion of that person.

[Lord Revan]

I'm hardly an expert on this issue, but my understanding is that diplomatic cover meant diplomatic immunity and the best a country could hope for was just an expulsion of that person.

best (or worst) depending on your point of view would be to declare the diplomatic official "person non grata" though that's reserved to very serious crimes (as it's seen as very insulting to the orgin country of the diplomat), though I suspect that US might make a token effort to set the agent free they won't be too serious about (again it's not diplomatically wise to publically try force country to free a spy they caught).

Basically diplomatic immunity isn't "get out of jail free" card and trying to use it as such maybe cause a major diplomatic incident.

[eyl]

IIRC being a diplomat does not automatically confer diplomatic immunity; more junior diplomats and "support" staff have a more limited form of immunity.

[Grumman]

Portugal’s supreme court has rejected a former CIA operative’s appeal against extradition to Italy to serve a six-year sentence for her part in an “extraordinary rendition” programme.

A court official said Sabrina de Sousa’s only remaining recourse is to appeal to Portugal’s constitutional court, arguing her extradition order is unconstitutional.

If she tried that, it would be immensely satisfying if the court laughed in her face. "You're right, we should have just kidnapped you and shipped you off to a third world country to be tortured. Oh wait! That's you."

[Imperial Overlord]

Real diplomatic immunity isn't like tv-movie diplomatic immunity. It's more of courtesy than a "get out of jail" free card. It doesn't stop the NYPD from going after diplomats for parking tickets, let alone get you out of kidnapping charges.

[Thanas]

If she was under diplomatic cover, would she not be immune to prosecution due to diplomatic immunity?

She no longer has immunity and her identies and those of her kidnapping collegues have been made public years ago, with notice that they would be arrested the moment they stepped foot on any place held by a European nation. Turns out she was dumb enough to travel outside the USA to a European nation.

[Alyrium Denryle]

If she was under diplomatic cover, would she not be immune to prosecution due to diplomatic immunity?

Even if diplomatic immunity worked that way (it does not), she does not have a current diplomatic credential. It covers you while you are in your assigned country on diplomatic business with that country. What Happens Under Diplomatic Immunity Does Not Stay Under Diplomatic Immunity if you leave and come back without said immunity.

So say a Saudi diplomat is a serial killer who killed 5 women while he was here, but was never prosecuted due to Political Reason/Immunity. Whatever. He leaves, retires, and comes back later on vacation. He can totally be arrested for those murders the second he steps off the plane.

[Adam Reynolds]

There is no way that she was operating under diplomatic immunity in the first place. CIA officers that do this have the unfortunate problem of being rather easily tracked. She and her team would have been operating as NOCs, without any cover in the event of a problem.

From what I remember about the technical side of this story, the CIA team in question was only identified because one of the members made the mistake of calling a CIA station in Italy. This allowed all of the burner phones in the network to be tied to the CIA and thus tied to the identities of the people involved. One of the key mistakes in this story is that all of the CIA personnel kept their phones turned on at all times, not realizing the technical problems involved in doing so. They learned a rather painful lesson about tradecraft in this case.

Though a worse case from the CIA's perspective happened in 2011, when the entirety of their operations in Lebanon were destroyed as a result of a lack of tradecraft involving phones. This included operations intended to infiltrate the Iranian regime.

[Sea Skimmer]

Real diplomatic immunity isn't like tv-movie diplomatic immunity.

Yeah, actually yes it is. Movies didn't invent anything. Rather people in the 21st century have lost touch with how serious this sort of thing used to be before we had the internet, or hell, movies, even existed. Look up the term plenipotentiary, and then think about what that used to mean. It used to be it took like five days to get a message across ~France, and diplomats were often entrusted with the full powers of the state. They were literal Kings in what they could do in some instances , and that was why the idea that they would have immunity from local law so as not to be impeded in any way from the full and clear exercises of such powers. Because if it were any other way we'd have had even more wars then we did already.

It's more of courtesy than a "get out of jail" free card. It doesn't stop the NYPD from going after diplomats for parking tickets, let alone get you out of kidnapping charges.

It is a never even go to jail card. You cannot arrest such a person or search their personal belongings. Period.

If you have real diplomatic immunity someone can write you a parking ticket and leave it on your car, but they can never enforce any penalty against you in any manner. They cannot even tow you car if it has actual diplomatic plates. You can murder someone and walk away from it in a pretty literal sense. You can park in front of a fire hydrant and they cannot remove your vehicle. They DO THIS all the time in NYC too.

Now what usually happens in serious and obvious breaches is that the diplomats own home country pulls the immunity as a courtesy and then normal legalism instantly applies, they can do at will. In the case of the US the Sec State can pull this protection from anyone he/she wants.

But short of that the only legal recourse for the host country is to formally expel that person, and take other indirect sanctions such as expelling ALL diplomats from that country to show how pissed they are. And it used to be back in the day before this really got dragged down into bullshit that abuse of diplomatic immunity were grounds for a declaration of War. But it also used to be that an accredited diplomat was far more important then they are today before it was possible to make telephone calls across oceans. Something only possible by land line after WW2 (prior to this you could make some phone calls over oceans, but only using a radio-telephone at high cost).

Also the very idea is all a western outgrowth of the 30 years war, and has had more uneven uptake in countries not linked to those events, and just generally been diluted by the unending bullshit of the modern world. But we do manage to have fewer wars at the end of the week, so the goal is still accomplished.

However full diplomatic immunity only applies to certain members of an embassy staff, and representatives to the United Nations. Consular staff have certain legal protections, but far less then that of full diplomats and in most cases are simply subject to local laws. So other then NYC and a few capitals of big countries (since not everyone has an embassy to everyone) the total number of people with this kind of immunity in any given country is pretty low.

As for the relevant topic, Portugal went after this person because they are a Portugese citizen in no small measure. Different rules both in a legal and a functional sense have always applied when its your own citizen vs someone else's . This is no bold move on the part of Portugal because of that. In fact its something of a stronger obligation.

[Imperial Overlord]

Yeah, actually yes it is. Movies didn't invent anything. Rather people in the 21st century have lost touch with how serious this sort of thing used to be before we had the internet, or hell, movies, even existed. Look up the term plenipotentiary, and then think about what that used to mean. It used to be it took like five days to get a message across ~France, and diplomats were often entrusted with the full powers of the state.

Yes, used to be, as you admit. We are talking about diplomatic immunity in the 21st Century, not the 19th. It's far from sure protection from arrest for serious crimes as its often pulled in such instances.

[Sea Skimmer]

Care to cite an example then? Because I don't bloody know of any full diplomats being arrested when clearly identified.

[Imperial Overlord]

Care to cite an example then? Because I don't bloody know of any full diplomats being arrested when clearly identified.

Certainly. It's an entirely reasonable request. I will also concede that I overstated the case in my initial statement. You are correct in that full diplomats aren't arrested while asserting diplomatic immunity, there have been a number of cases when that has been waved and they have been tried for serious crimes either in the country they committed the offenses or on returning to their home country. The idea spread by popular entertainment that a diplomat can clearly commit serious crimes and reliably escape all consequences based on diplomatic immunity might make a good Lethal Weapon movie but doesn't reflect reality.


There is the 2009 drunk driving incident in Singapore by the Romanian interm Charge d' Affaires Silviu Ionescu. He left the country three days later and Singapore had issued an arrest warrant against him and Romania ended up trying him. He was convicted and died in jail.

Drunk driving again for Andrei Knyazev in 2001. Diplomatic immunity was not waved, but he was tried when he went back home to Russia and convicted of involuntary manslaughter.

Car accidents again in 1997 Washington DC. Diplomatic immunity was revoked by Georgia and Gueorgui Makharadze got seven years.

In 1999 in Vancouver, Shuji Simokoji had his diplomatic immunity waved by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was convicted of assaulting his wife.

[Xisiqomelir]

De Sousa, who was born in India and holds both US and Portuguese passports, was on her way to visit her elderly mother in India with a round-trip ticket when she was detained.

Mmm, delicious karma.

[Ralin]

If she was under diplomatic cover, would she not be immune to prosecution due to diplomatic immunity?

I'm fairly certain diplomatic immunity doesn't cover kidnapping. There was a case 2 or 3 years ago where an Indian diplomat at the UN faced prosecution for visa fraud (the case was a little more complicated she was accused of forcing her domestic help to accept sub-minimum wage payment). If fraud of that nature wouldn't fly in the US I think we've got a hard time protesting a prosecution for kidnapping.

The Indian embassy official in question didn't have diplomatic immunity. She had consular immunity, which is much more restrictive and as I understand it only covers actions taken in the course of performing her official duties. Which "essentially keeping a house slave in New York City" obviously did not fall under.

And even then the police were unusually restrained and respectful in apprehending her, if I remember right.