Former CIA intelligence officer Sabrina deSousa says the US "abandoned and betrayed" her and the others who were put on trial for the kidnapping of a Muslim cleric Abu Omar in Milan in 2003. (ABC News)
The Italian government has stepped in to reassure the U.S. government that it will not seek the extradition of 23 U.S. agents who were convicted by an Italian judge last week for criminal conduct over the rendition of a Muslim cleric from Milan. Here is an excerpt from today’s Press TV report:
(Quote)
Last week, a court in Milan convicted 22 former CIA agents and a retired US Air Force colonel for the abduction of Milan imam Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, in 2003.
Nasr, who was kidnapped over alleged suspicions of recruiting fighters, was taken to a US military installation in northeastern Italy, then flown to a US base in Germany, and then on to Cairo, where he says he was tortured and threatened with rape.
Despite a successful government suit invoking secrecy that ruled out much of the evidence and resulted in three CIA operatives obtaining immunity, Italy’s judiciary went ahead with the case.
Two top former Italian security agents were also cleared of all charges due to secrecy norms while two less senior operatives were convicted.
The 23 former US agents are not likely to serve time behind the bars, but will not be able to return to Europe, where their arrest warrants remain active.
The two-year Milan trial was the first case in which the controversial US practice of ‘extraordinary rendition’ was challenged in court.
(End quote)
According to Reuters, the Italian judge Oscar Magi convicted the 23 Americans in absentia for involvement in Nasr’s rendition to Egypt but “dropped the case against three Americans, including a former CIA Rome station chief, because of diplomatic immunity.”
Meanwhile, The Belfast Telegraph has reported that one of the 23 Americans convicted of rendition has admitted to breaking the law on ABC News:
(Quote)
One of the Americans convicted in absentia by an Italian court for her part in the 2003 abduction of a Muslim cleric by CIA operatives has acknowledged they “broke the law” and complained she was given insufficient protection by her superiors in Washington.
Sabrina deSousa, employed in the US consulate offices in Milan at the time of the abduction, made clear in an interview with ABC News that she was disgruntled that she and the other 22 Americans who were convicted by a Milan court on Wednesday had been left to fend for themselves by their country.
Ms deSousa, who has not explicitly said she was working for the CIA, was sentenced to five years by the judge in the case. Indeed on the day that the cleric, known as Abu Omar, was taken from the street and whisked first to Germany and thereafter to Egypt, she was out of the city on a skiing break.
The longest sentence, of eight years, was given to the former Milan CIA station chief, Robert Seldon Lady. There seems little likelihood that the convicted Americans will serve their terms, not least because Italy has declined to seek their extradition from the US, partly in the interest of US-Italian relations. It is probably true, however, that the 22 will always run the risk of arrest if they leave the US territory.
Saying she felt “abandoned and betrayed” as the trial unfolded over three years, Ms deSousa said “everything I did was approved by Washington… and we are paying for the mistakes right now, whoever authorised this.”
That so many former and current CIA operatives should have been dragged through a foreign court has begun to rankle Capitol Hill. “I think these people have been hung out to dry,” complained Republican congressman Pete Hoekstra of the House Intelligence Committee. “They’re taking the fall for a decision that was made by their superiors.” The CIA will not comment on the case, which is seen as a rebuke to the administration of George W Bush.
In an interview earlier this year with an Italian newspaper, Mr Lady was candid about the seizure of the cleric. “Of course it was an illegal operation,” the newspaper quoted him. “But that’s our job. We’re at war against terrorism”.
(End Quote)
I noticed that I didn’t really offer an opinion on Rendition in that post. Well, here’s my 2 cents:
1. It is unprofessional for U.S. intel officers to rely on foreign interrogators to extricate information at remote locations through the use of dubious methods.
2. If innocent people are subjected to such measures – kidnapping, transport to different country without consent, torture – then the people involved in making those decisions should have to answer for their mistakes.
It is, after all, a war on terror, not a war of terror – unless, of course, Borat has been right all along.
“It is unprofessional for U.S. intel officers to rely on foreign interrogators to extricate information at remote locations through the use of dubious methods.”
It is no great surprise that you feel this way, even though I think your fellow citizens in Mumbai might disagree.
How can it be “unprofessional” to grab some phony cleric who is actively using the freedom of Western society to undermine his host country, Europe, and the U.S.?
Terrorists are not afforded the luxury of the Geneva Convention. How is it “unprofessional” to stop the slaughter of civilians before an attack by any means possible? How is it “unprofessional” to show terrorists, the same terrorists who regularly use children and mosques as combat cover, that we will stop at nothing to get them?
I guess you and the current administration are both believers in giving terrorists the same rights as U.S. citizens.
Was the person renditioned proven to be a “terrorist”? If not, then your argument is completely false, and my point #2 (above) applies.
The problem with the 1% doctrine, as I have argued in prior posts, is that it is wrong 99% of the time, which essentially means 99% error rates that, in a counter-insurgency, strengthen the enemy. Every faulty rendition/torture/killing strengthens the enemy’s propaganda and increases its ranks. Look at Afghanistan circa 2001-2008 (Bush-Cheney era) when the insurgency grew every year after 2002 under the 1% doctrine.
The rebirth of the Taliban insurgency had nothing to do with any 1% doctrine or any of your other points.
In a unique situation like Afghanhistan, (yes unique) a renewal of hostilities was fully expected by the US military.
Martin: “It is no great surprise that you feel this way, even though I think your fellow citizens in Mumbai might disagree.”
When has India ever renditioned anyone to a foreign country to be interrogated by foreigners? From the assassins of Indira Gandhi (Beant and Satwant Singh) to the last year’s Mumbai ‘Thanksgiving’ attacker (“Kasab”), Indian security officials are very possessive about their prisoners and always interrogate them in Indian captivity using Indian methods.
Indian methods? Does this include feeding them local cuisine?
Where would you rather be held as a terrorist? A Mumbai or Calcutta prison, or a US Federal Prison like MCC? Guantanamo is a country club compared to Rikers Island. The point is, we-the US-are too good to these phony clerics, Mullahs, etc.
OK Martin – you raise some valid arguments. Unfortunately, I got some bad news from India late tonight and I will not be thinking clearly for the next few days in order to continue posting here, but I am sure readers, if any, will find our give and take illuminating.