text: Abu Omar says Sabrina De Sousa, who faces extradition to Italy, is a scapegoat and the real culprits are more senior officials 
   
   The radical Egyptian cleric who was kidnapped in Milan by the CIA in 2003 has come to the defence of a former CIA officer convicted for her alleged role in his extraordinary rendition. 
   
   Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, who is known as Abu Omar, told the Guardian in a telephone interview that he believed Sabrina De Sousa, who faces imminent extradition to Italy, was a scapegoat and ought to be pardoned by Italy’s head of state, Sergio Mattarella. De Sousa, a 60-year-old dual American and Portuguese citizen, faces a four-year prison sentence and is due to be extradited from Portugal on 4 May. 
   
   “Sabrina and the others who were convicted are scapegoats. The US administration sacrificed them. All of those higher up in the hierarchy are enjoying their immunity,” he said. “These people higher up, without doubt they should be convicted in this case. They should face trial.” 
   
   The remarks mark an extraordinary turn of events in a story that has vexed the US and Italian governments since Abu Omar’s case became public in 2005, exposing in great detail the inner workings of a highly classified and controversial Bush-era counter-terrorism programme. The case also exposed US allies’ help in conducting the secret programme. Abu Omar’s views on De Sousa were first reported by ADNKronos, a wire agency. 
   
   Abu Omar’s story began on 18 February 2003 when he was stopped on a street in Milan, grabbed from behind and pulled inside a car by CIA officers, allegedly working with the help of Italian officials. The radical cleric, who had been granted political asylum in Italy in 2001 and was already the subject of a terrorism investigation by other Italian officials, leading to his eventual conviction in absentia, was then transported to Cairo via Germany, where he was allegedly imprisoned, interrogated and tortured. 
   
   Facebook Twitter Pinterest Abu Omar was stopped on a street in Milan, grabbed from behind and pulled inside a car by CIA officers. Photograph: Nasser Nasser/AP 
   
   The case was investigated by an independent prosecutor in Italy, leading to the conviction in 2009 of 22 CIA operatives and other US officials for orchestrating the kidnapping. The US officials, including De Sousa, who was publicly a state department official in Milan but actually an undercover CIA officer, were convicted in absentia as they had left Italy before the trial began. Some officials, including Italians, were later pardoned. 
   
   The US did not invoke diplomatic immunity for De Sousa or other low level officials. The story was dormant for years, largely because successive Italian governments steered clear of the issue and never sought to extradite any of the Americans involved. But that changed the moment De Sousa decided to leave the US last year and travel to Portugal to visit family. She was detained at the airport in Lisbon on her way to India because of an outstanding European arrest warrant that had been issued by law enforcement officials. 
   
   De Sousa has always said she played a minor role as a translator in an early-stage discussion of extraordinary rendition, before Abu Omar had been named as a potential target. 
   
   
   
   In the Guardian interview, Abu Omar said he was not sure whether she played a role, but that he had never seen her before. 
   
   He said: “Now she’s 60 years old. If media reports are right, she and the people who kidnapped me were the reason why I left my job in Italy, and a lot of trouble to me and my family happened because of that. They are the reason behind my physical disabilities now. The Italian prosecution actually accused her of this.” 
   
   Whatever her involvement, he added: “She’s threatened to be sentenced between four and six years, and I don’t wish that for her. I’ve been in prison before, and I don’t wish for the same to happen to her, either as a friend or a foe. Especially because she’s a woman.” 
   
   He pointed out that De Sousa had been on her way to visit her 90-year-old mother in India, and that he had been forbidden from paying respects to his own late mother after Egypt’s interior minister at the time refused to release him from jail. 
   
   “[He] refused for me to attend my own mother’s funeral, and Sabrina could be subjected to the same problem,” he said. “As a Muslim, I should wish for her to be pardoned.” 
   
   
   
   Italy condemned for its role in abduction of Egyptian imam in 2003 Read more 
   
   He insisted that hers was a humanitarian case, because she “exposed injustices and revealed the injustices through the media”. De Sousa has been a consistent critic of the US government and made a series of allegations in 2013, including that the former CIA station chief Jeffrey Castelli had exaggerated the threat Abu Omar posed to get approval for the rendition, and that the operation had been approved by the then CIA director George Tenet. In a recent interview with the Guardian she suggested she would willingly have discussions with Italian officials in order to defend herself. 
   
   De Sousa said in response to the Abu Omar comments that she appreciated his remarks about her family. 
   
   “Abu Omar also recognises that my imprisonment will not result in real accountability for what he went through in Egypt,” she said. 
   
   De Sousa has said she knows the US government actively lobbied Italy’s president, Mattarella, to pardon two CIA officials who were shown leniency late last year, even though they never served time in Italy. 
   
   The former CIA officer’s predicament comes at an exceedingly tricky moment for the Italian government. 
   
   “The US has been between a rock and a hard place on this for some time and now Italy is poised to wedge themselves in as well,” said Chris Jenks, director of the Criminal Justice Clinic and an assistant law professor at Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School of Law, who has followed the case. A move by Mattarella to pardon De Sousa would be politically problematic in Italy given the country’s ongoing stand-off with Egypt over the recent torture and murder of an Italian citizen, Giulio Regeni, in Cairo. 
   
   Americans, he added, were generally perceived as being unaccountable in matters of justice in Italy, from cases ranging from the 1998 Cavalese cable car disaster, when 20 people were killed after four American pilots accidentally cut a cable supporting a gondola but never faced prosecution, to the case of Amanda Knox, who was found not guilty of murder last year after a contentious murder trial. 
   
   “The Obama administration inherited this debacle and cannot publicly support what the CIA did in Milan. At the same time the US, like all countries, needs an intelligence service and President Obama doesn’t want his legacy to be as allowing the first ever extradition of a CIA agent,” Jenks said. 
   
   
   
   Underscoring the point, the conservative Wall Street Journal published an editorial this week that criticised the White House for failing to protect De Sousa, saying Washington had “abandoned one of its operatives to the political whims of foreign prosecutors” and that her case sent a “demoralising message to all who serve in the shadows, even as the war on terror enters a dangerous new phase”. 
   
   The US has refused to comment on the case. But one official told the Guardian that De Sousa had made a decision to break ties with the government when she moved to sue the US for not invoking diplomatic immunity to help her. 
   
   
   
   Jenks said it would probably never be known how the US might try to incentivise Italy’s president to “make this go away” but that Italy would probably leverage the situation to get something in return for a pardon. 
   
   The issue could feasibly be discussed as early as Friday, when the US vice-president, Joe Biden, is due to meet Italy’s prime minister, Matteo Renzi, in Rome. ||||| A former CIA officer who was convicted for helping the agency abduct a terrorism suspect off the streets of Milan lost her extradition battle Wednesday and said she fears she’ll end up in an Italian prison while the U.S. government sits on the sidelines. 
   
   Sabrina de Sousa was one of 26 American officials convicted in absentia for the "extraordinary rendition" by the CIA of Osama Mustafa Hassan Nasr, a radical Egyptian cleric, who later claimed Egyptian officials tortured him after being handed over by the U.S. spy agency in 2003. 
   
   De Sousa's lawyers have for years tried to persuade Barack Obama's administration to support her. 
   
   "The U.S. government won't intervene because they don't want me implicating anyone else as I try to counter the charges against me," de Sousa told ABC News from Lisbon, Portugal, where she has spent the past year fighting extradition to Italy over the George W. Bush–era counterterrorism operation. 
   
   "It's prison when I get there. No one wants narrative changed," de Sousa said Wednesday. "I am trying to keep calm for the sake of my family.” 
   
   When she was convicted in 2009, de Sousa told ABC News the U.S. government had “abandoned and betrayed” her and her colleagues. 
   
   “Clearly, we broke a law,” she said then, “and we’re paying for the mistakes right now, whoever authorized and approved this.” 
   
   Khaled Desouki/AFP/Getty Images 
   
   So far, the U.S. government has mostly stayed out the case, at least publicly, so this week de Sousa appealed directly to Rome — penning an open letter to Pope Francis. 
   
   "Your holiness, you have spoken decisively about the [CIA's] rendition, detention and interrogation program. We need your holiness’s voice now more than ever to keep this issue in the forefront for much needed discourse in the court of public opinion," de Sousa wrote to Francis Wednesday in the letter, provided to ABC News. In October 2014, Francis spoke out against torture, illegal detention and countries that allow for the illegal transport of detainees to detention centers where torture is practiced. 
   
   "As of today, my extradition from Portugal to Italy is underway. Italy has guaranteed Portugal that I will be notified of my sentence and have the opportunity to counter the charges against me. Whether that happens remains to be seen," she told the pontiff. 
   
   Nasr has claimed he was innocent of the accusations of terrorism, but in 2013 was reportedly convicted in absentia by an Italian court of criminal association with the goal of terrorism and with aiding illegal emigration with the goal of terrorism. 
   
   The radical imam said this April in an interview with The Guardian that de Sousa and her colleagues were “scapegoats” and should not be held accountable for his abduction or torture. Rather, the U.S. government should own up to it. 
   
   De Sousa in the ABC News interview said she had long wished to respond to Francis' comments on the rendition, detention and interrogation program by CIA, "and since my future is uncertain, I am doing it now.” 
   
   The CIA declined to comment for this report. Last month a representative for the State Department declined to comment on de Sousa’s predicament as well, saying, “We don’t talk about extradition cases.” 
   
   ABC News’ Lee Ferran contributed to this report. ||||| Former CIA Officer Says She Is Set To Be Extradited To Italy 
   
   Enlarge this image toggle caption Barbara L. Salisbury/MCT via Getty Images Barbara L. Salisbury/MCT via Getty Images 
   
   A former CIA officer convicted in Italy of playing a role in a kidnapping under the agency's "extraordinary rendition" program said Wednesday that she will be extradited to Italy and sent to prison. 
   
   Sabrina de Sousa was convicted in absentia by an Italian court — along with 25 other Americans — of the kidnapping of Egyptian cleric Abu Omar off the streets of Milan 13 years ago. 
   
   The kidnapping was part of the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program, under which, as The Associated Press puts it, "terrorism suspects were kidnapped and transferred to centers where they were interrogated and tortured." The program was greatly expanded during the George W. Bush administration, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. 
   
   De Sousa, who was working undercover for the CIA in Italy at the time of Abu Omar's kidnapping, denies personal involvement in the abduction. As NPR's Mary Louise Kelly reported last month, De Sousa says she and her son were on a school trip to the ski slopes in northern Italy, more than 150 miles from Milan, for the entire week during which Abu Omar was abducted. 
   
   Of the 26 Americans convicted of the kidnapping, some have since been pardoned, Mary Louise says, and none have yet served time in jail. 
   
   De Sousa appealed her conviction to Portugal's highest court, but the Constitutional Court said Tuesday that her appeal was rejected, the AP says. 
   
   "De Sousa says she's waiting to hear when she will be taken to Italy, where she faces a four-year sentence," Mary Louise reports. "De Sousa has battled her conviction through lawyers in Washington [D.C.], in Italy, and in Portugal — where she now lives." 
   
   As Mary Louise reported last month, critics of De Sousa point out that if she had stayed in the U.S., "the whole affair would very likely have gone quiet": 
   
   "Instead, De Sousa, who holds both American and Portuguese passports, decided to tempt fate and travel to Europe, when she knew there was a Europol warrant for her arrest. "Asked why, De Sousa says she became convinced her name would never be cleared unless she forced the issue. She also says she has close family in Europe, including cousins and a sibling. " 'As you get older, family becomes more important,' she says. 'While some people may think I did something really stupid, I just, you know, this was important to me.' " 
   
   In an email Wednesday, De Sousa told NPR it's her understanding that she will be heading straight to prison in Italy but that she hopes for some sort of appeal, Mary Louise reports. 
   
   De Sousa wrote, "I hope I am able to go to Italy safely, for the purpose of countering the charges against me, instead of being silenced." 
   
   Italian President Sergio Mattarella has granted clemency to other defendants in this case, the AP reports. 
   
   De Sousa said she wrote a letter to Pope Francis on Wednesday appealing for help. She writes:
target: – A former CIA officer says she's days away from being sent to an Italian prison and blames the US government for not doing more to help her, ABC News reports. In 2003, the CIA abducted Egyptian cleric and terror suspect Osama Mustafa Hassan Nasr from Milan, Italy, under its "extraordinary rendition" program. Nasr says he was transferred to Egypt, where he was tortured. At the time, Sabrina de Sousa was working undercover for the CIA in Italy but tells NPR she was 150 miles away on a ski trip with her son during the week Nasr was kidnapped. Nevertheless, de Sousa was one of 26 Americans convicted of violating Italian law by abducting Nasr. She faces four years in prison, the Guardian reports. De Sousa has been living in Portugal and fighting extradition—without any apparent help from the US government. "The US government won't intervene because they don't want me implicating anyone else as I try to counter the charges against me," de Sousa tells ABC. She says she feels "abandoned and betrayed" by her own country. De Sousa appealed her extradition to Portugal's highest court but lost that appeal Wednesday. She believes her next stop is an Italian prison and has asked Pope Francis for help. In a strange twist, while the US government isn't speaking up for de Sousa, the man she is said to have helped kidnap is. “The US administration sacrificed them," Nasr tells the Guardian. "All of those higher up in the hierarchy are enjoying their immunity." He says de Sousa is a "scapegoat." So far, none of the 26 Americans convicted by Italy have seen jail time.