Who Is Sabrina de Sousa? Ex-CIA Officer Pardoned For Bush ‘War On Terror’ Extraordinary Rendition

A former Central Intelligence Agency officer was suddenly pardoned by Italy’s president late Tuesday for crimes committed during President George W. Bush’s “War on Terror” following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington that reshaped the scope of the U.S.’s intelligence agencies, The Guardian reported.

The officer was named Sabrina de Sousa and she was convicted in absentia in 2009 for a role in the extraordinary rendition, or illegal transfer of a suspect without due process, of extreme Egyptian cleric Abu Omar. De Sousa was expected to serve four years in an Italian prison and was even about to leave Portugal for Italy before Italian President Sergio Mattarella stepped in.

Mattarella issued a partial pardon Tuesday, a move that removed one year from De Sousa’s sentence, and also said in the statement that she could use “alternative measures” in order to serve the sentence, but was not clear as to whether she would have to stay in Italy.

A holder of dual citizenship in the U.S. and in Portugal, De Sousa was detained by Portuguese officials last week and had awaited extradition to Italy ever since, according to The New York Times.

De Sousa’s role in the grabbing of Omar came in the early years of Bush’s rendition program. In February 2003, De Sousa had been posing as a diplomat in Milan and was part of a group of 26 Americans convicted with snatching up the cleric and taking him to a military base in Egypt where he claimed he was tortured. The program, which technically started under President Bill Clinton, was eventually abolished by President Barack Obama but only after the U.S. had set up black sites, or secret prisons, in countries like Jordan and Afghanistan for interrogations and torture.

Eventually, in 2013, Omar was convicted on terrorism charges and sentenced to six years in prison.

In the years since, the 61-year-old De Sousa became an active critic of the Bush administration and claimed she was a scapegoat for the president’s highly controversial measures to root out terrorism around the globe. She was also critical of the U.S.’ lack of efforts to help her avoid jail time.