Conviction could keep ex-CIA agent away from family in Goa
Panaji, dhns: Former Central Intelligence Agency officer Sabrina D’Souza, 54, is one of the 23 Americans convicted by an Italian court last week for kidnapping Muslim cleric Abu Omar in Milan in 2003.
D’Souza and 22 others were sentenced in absentia to five years in prison. Robert Seldon Lady, who headed the CIA station in Milan, was handed out a eight-year term. Only three people who had diplomatic immunity were acquitted by the Italian court.
D’Souza told the ABC News in New York after the court verdict that she felt “betrayed and abandoned” by her government and that she and the others convicted in the case were “paying for the mistakes of whoever authorised this.” She said the US had “broken the law” in Omar’s kidnapping.
Media reports said the Americans had been advised never to leave the US for fear they could be turned over to the Italians by other countries.
Sabrina D’Souza grew up in Goa and Mumbai and became a naturalised American in 1985. Her family lives in Goa, but the conviction could make it difficult for her to return home anytime soon.
The former CIA operative resigned her job with the US state department in February. She had also filed a lawsuit against the US State Department for not invoking diplomatic immunity in her case.
D’Souza and her lawyer insisted she never worked for the CIA. But Italian prosecutors said she was a CIA officer using diplomatic cover and was one of the four US officials mainly responsible for co-ordinating Omar’s capture from a Milan street on February 17, 2003.
The Italian paparazzi also had a field day covering the trial after dubbing D’Souza as the Mata Hari of the case.
