Saturday, January 07, 2012
Sabrina De Sousa (photo: WTOP)
Convicted of participating in the kidnap of a Muslim cleric nine years ago from Italy, Sabrina De Sousa has lost her bid to gain diplomatic immunity from the State Department, which she officially worked for but in reality may have been a spy.
A naturalized U.S. citizen from India, De Sousa was one of 26 U.S. officials convicted in absentia in 2009 by an Italian court, after cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr (a.k.a. Abu Omar) was kidnapped in Milan in February 2003 and shipped to Egypt, where he was allegedly tortured before being released four years later.
The Italian government claimed De Sousa secretly worked for the Central Intelligence Agency and used her official position as a diplomat as cover. She was convicted of creating false documents to mislead investigators and sentenced to five years in prison, which she avoided by remaining in the United States.
After the State Department refused her request for diplomatic immunity, which would have allowed her to leave the country without risk of being extradited to Italy, De Sousa resigned from her post. She then sued the agency to force it to provide the immunity she sought.
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell on Thursday threw out De Sousa’s case.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Judge Dismisses Lawsuit in Italian Kidnapping Case (Associated Press)
Accused CIA Agent Sues for Diplomatic Immunity (by David Wallechinsky and Jacquelyn Lickness, AllGov)
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