Woman in Rendition Case Sues for Immunity
By Scott Shane
Published: May 13, 2009
The New York Times
WASHINGTON — A former American official charged with kidnapping in Italy in the 2003 seizure of a radical Muslim cleric filed a lawsuit on Wednesday seeking to force the State Department to invoke diplomatic immunity to halt the prosecution.
Italian prosecutors have claimed that the former official, Sabrina De Sousa, 53, was a C.I.A. officer serving under diplomatic cover in the United States Consulate in Milan at the time the cleric, known as Abu Omar, was grabbed on the street by American counterterrorism officers.
He was flown to Egypt, where he later contended that he was tortured. The case became a symbol of the American practice of rendition, in which a terrorism suspect is captured and delivered to another country for interrogation.
In the lawsuit, filed in United States District Court in Washington, and in an interview, Ms. De Sousa described herself as a diplomat and denied that she had worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. A spokesman for the agency declined to comment on Ms. De Sousa or her lawsuit, but former agency officials said that she had worked for the C.I.A. in Italy.
The lawsuit asks the court to order the government to invoke diplomatic immunity, provide her with legal counsel in Italy and pay her legal bills and other costs associated with the case.
Italian investigators found Ms. De Sousa’s phone number in the cellphone of a C.I.A. officer involved in the rendition, and she was among 25 alleged C.I.A. officers and one American military officer indicted in the case in 2006. In lurid Italian news accounts, Ms. De Sousa has been described as “Sabrina the tiger, with stiletto heels and fists of steel” and as the case’s Mata Hari.
But she insists that she played no role in the episode, which occurred in February 2003. In fact, Ms. De Sousa said, she had been skiing with friends at the time, and she showed a reporter for The New York Times credit card bills from that time for ski rental and a hotel in Madonna di Campligio, 130 miles from Milan.
Ms. De Sousa, who grew up in India and became a naturalized American citizen in 1985, said that most of her family lived overseas and that since the indictment government officials had strongly advised her not to travel abroad for fear of arrest or other legal complications. She said she resigned from government service in February because she felt torn between the government’s instructions and her desire to visit her family.
“I had to choose between my job and my family,” Ms. De Sousa said in an interview at the Washington office of her lawyer, Mark S. Zaid. “The government sent me to Italy to represent this country and then basically abandoned me.”
Ms. De Sousa called it “inexplicable” that the government had not invoked diplomatic immunity. “I’m still at a loss as to why this country is allowing the case to head toward conviction,” she said.
State Department officials declined to comment, noting that the case is at a highly sensitive stage. In March, Italy’s Constitutional Court ruled that Italian prosecutors had violated state secrecy in gathering evidence in the case, and it is uncertain whether the prosecution will continue.
But the State Department officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, that they had been very active and “are pursuing every avenue to try to bring this case to a satisfactory resolution.” They noted that most of the alleged officers charged in the rendition were not under diplomatic cover and would not qualify for immunity.
Legal experts said that intelligence officers serving under diplomatic cover often claim immunity when facing criminal charges overseas. But Curtis A. Bradley, a Duke law professor specializing in international law, cautioned that “consular immunity,” the category that presumably would apply to Ms. De Sousa, was limited by treaty to “acts performed in the exercise of consular functions.”
Mr. Bradley said the rendition might not qualify under that definition, suggesting that pressing the immunity issue might not automatically free Ms. De Sousa from the prosecution.
Sphere: Related Content
By Scott Shane
Published: May 13, 2009
The New York Times
WASHINGTON — A former American official charged with kidnapping in Italy in the 2003 seizure of a radical Muslim cleric filed a lawsuit on Wednesday seeking to force the State Department to invoke diplomatic immunity to halt the prosecution.
Italian prosecutors have claimed that the former official, Sabrina De Sousa, 53, was a C.I.A. officer serving under diplomatic cover in the United States Consulate in Milan at the time the cleric, known as Abu Omar, was grabbed on the street by American counterterrorism officers.
He was flown to Egypt, where he later contended that he was tortured. The case became a symbol of the American practice of rendition, in which a terrorism suspect is captured and delivered to another country for interrogation.
In the lawsuit, filed in United States District Court in Washington, and in an interview, Ms. De Sousa described herself as a diplomat and denied that she had worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. A spokesman for the agency declined to comment on Ms. De Sousa or her lawsuit, but former agency officials said that she had worked for the C.I.A. in Italy.
The lawsuit asks the court to order the government to invoke diplomatic immunity, provide her with legal counsel in Italy and pay her legal bills and other costs associated with the case.
Italian investigators found Ms. De Sousa’s phone number in the cellphone of a C.I.A. officer involved in the rendition, and she was among 25 alleged C.I.A. officers and one American military officer indicted in the case in 2006. In lurid Italian news accounts, Ms. De Sousa has been described as “Sabrina the tiger, with stiletto heels and fists of steel” and as the case’s Mata Hari.
But she insists that she played no role in the episode, which occurred in February 2003. In fact, Ms. De Sousa said, she had been skiing with friends at the time, and she showed a reporter for The New York Times credit card bills from that time for ski rental and a hotel in Madonna di Campligio, 130 miles from Milan.
Ms. De Sousa, who grew up in India and became a naturalized American citizen in 1985, said that most of her family lived overseas and that since the indictment government officials had strongly advised her not to travel abroad for fear of arrest or other legal complications. She said she resigned from government service in February because she felt torn between the government’s instructions and her desire to visit her family.
“I had to choose between my job and my family,” Ms. De Sousa said in an interview at the Washington office of her lawyer, Mark S. Zaid. “The government sent me to Italy to represent this country and then basically abandoned me.”
Ms. De Sousa called it “inexplicable” that the government had not invoked diplomatic immunity. “I’m still at a loss as to why this country is allowing the case to head toward conviction,” she said.
State Department officials declined to comment, noting that the case is at a highly sensitive stage. In March, Italy’s Constitutional Court ruled that Italian prosecutors had violated state secrecy in gathering evidence in the case, and it is uncertain whether the prosecution will continue.
But the State Department officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, that they had been very active and “are pursuing every avenue to try to bring this case to a satisfactory resolution.” They noted that most of the alleged officers charged in the rendition were not under diplomatic cover and would not qualify for immunity.
Legal experts said that intelligence officers serving under diplomatic cover often claim immunity when facing criminal charges overseas. But Curtis A. Bradley, a Duke law professor specializing in international law, cautioned that “consular immunity,” the category that presumably would apply to Ms. De Sousa, was limited by treaty to “acts performed in the exercise of consular functions.”
Mr. Bradley said the rendition might not qualify under that definition, suggesting that pressing the immunity issue might not automatically free Ms. De Sousa from the prosecution.
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