Out in the cold: Intel agent says U.S. 'betrayed' her

WASHINGTON - Sabrina De Sousa's job in 2003 as a State Department officer in the political/military section of Milan, Italy was to "provide Washington with the ground truth."

What's ground truth?

"It could be the economic situation of the country, how the country views us (the United States) or it could be an incident that happened on any given day. Our job is to report that information back to Washington," she says.

But it was an event that took place on one of those "any given days" that resulted in her conviction in absentia along with 22 U.S. State Department, Central Intelligence Agency and military officers on kidnapping charges by the Italian government on Nov. 4, 2009.

That event led to the unraveling of her life, and De Sousa charges the U.S. government turned its back on her.

"I feel dismayed at the way this whole thing has been handled. It didn't need to get to this point. I'm an American citizen and I feel I've been betrayed by the government," she says.

According to the Italian judiciary, it all began on Feb. 17, 2003 as Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, was abducted by CIA officers as he was walking to his mosque in Milan for noon prayers. He was suspected of being one of Italy's most dangerous terrorists and viewed as a potential threat to the U.S.

After the abduction, court documents say he was later transported to a prison in Egypt, where over a four-year period he was allegedly tortured.

De Sousa was one of 26 U.S. agents and seven Italian agents accused of planning and carrying out the operation known as an "extraordinary rendition."

But De Sousa says that's impossible. She says she was 300 miles away skiing with her child at the time of the rendition.

"If, as has been alleged, I was involved in planning it and I was this big shot they claim I was, based on interviews with certain Italian officials, then I would have to have been around there to execute something like this.

"If you look at the court order that showed what the prosecutor presented, there were all actions which were bad judgment on the part of several officers in terms of they what they said about me, e-mails (they sent) giving out my phone number to individuals whom I don't know. That is what the prosecutor put together to indict me."

The "bad judgment" she refers to was Bob Lady's, a State Department colleague in Milan.

"My supervisor, the head of the political military section, he had made comments to officers in the Italian government," De Sousa says. Lady, the former CIA Station Chief in Milan, was among those convicted.

Omar was eventually released in 2007. No evidence of any aggression against the U.S. was ever found.

When the guilty verdicts came down, a silent ripple coursed through the intelligence community.

"When this administration's goal is to reach out and partner up and all that, and you throw their own officers under the bus, what's the perception of everyone in the world?

"They're going to see some very vulnerable officers sitting in the different missions in the world knowing that friend and foe can indict them anytime they want on whatever charge they want because there's a real possibility the U.S. will do absolutely nothing about it. This country just looks very bad," De Sousa says.

"The CIA has not commented on any of the allegations surrounding Abu Omar," says CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano.

That said, it would be wrong for anyone to suggest that this agency doesn't support its people. Intelligence operations, by definition, involve risk. If we left our officers out on their own when things got tough, the CIA wouldn't have lasted two years, let alone 62. Organizations like this run on trust and confidence."

The situation also may throw a wrench into the international political machine.

"It is virtually unprecedented that a foreign power, and particularly a close ally, would pursue criminal charges against acknowledged U.S. diplomats, and even rarer that the U.S. government would allow it to happen once underway," says De Sousa's U.S. attorney Mark Zaid.

"To be sure, enemy powers have targeted our diplomats, but even in the worst case scenario the individual would simply be declared persona non grata and leave the country. That this rendition prosecution even finished reflects a fundamental failure of a recognized system," he says.

De Sousa says it all could have been avoided had the U.S. confronted the situation head on in the beginning. She says members of the Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives refused to help her or her fellow officers.

"We started to talk to the Senators(Dianne) Feinstein, and (Jay) Rockefeller and from the House (Pete) Hoekstra and (Silvestre) Reyes. We sent numerous letters up to the Hill, also (former) Attorney General Michael Mukase, the DNI's office, General Hayden (former director of the CIA) and the State Department and we got no response from anybody," says De Sousa.

De Sousa, originally from Goa, on the west coast of India, says the one substantive response she got from Capitol Hill was some cold advice from a staffer to "go back and get a job where you came from."

Michael Hayden, who stepped down as head of the CIA earlier this year, responded to De Sousa's claims saying, "Neither confirming or denying the event took place, the CIA takes the well being of employees very seriously, and takes every action possible to ensure the safety well being of it's employees."

Hayden declined to comment further.

The State Department declined to comment citing concerns about an ongoing civil suit.

Sens. Feinstein, Rockefeller and Reps. Hoekstra and Reyes did not respond to WTOP requests for comment on the matter.

De Sousa says she will continue to fight to clear her name and live a normal life, but is aware she has to be careful when traveling see her family because a Europol warrant has been issued for her arrest and Interpol may eventually follow suit.

Of the 26 U.S. officers charged, 23 were convicted by the Italian court. Three were given diplomatic immunity. Five of the seven Italians accused were convicted and two were acquitted.

De Sousa and the others who were convicted face five to eight years in prison and millions of dollars in fines. Lady's home in Italy was awarded to Omar.

(Copyright 2009 by WTOP. All rights reserved.)