SpyTalk

 

In a sudden reversal this week, the Justice Department informed DeSousa, one of more than two dozen CIA officers charged with kidnapping in connection with the "rendition" of an al Qaeda suspect from Milan in 2003, that it would pay her legal costs.

DeSousa had sued the government in May after years of unsuccessfully pressing her case in private.

Justice Department spokeswoman Beverley Lumpkin declined to say whether the U.S. would pay the legal expenses of other defendants in the controversial case.

"The decision to authorize payment of fees to Ms. De Sousa is public," Lumpkin said by e-mail. "If we approve payment of fees, that becomes public.  But we cannot comment about other parties who may or may not have sought the same."

The decision on DeSousa came nearly simultaneously with a report in The Washington Post that CIA Director Leon Panetta had told employees that the spy agency would pay the legal fees of those caught up in investigations of interrogation abuses at secret sites overseas.

De Sousa, 53, was listed as an American diplomat in Italy on Feb. 17, 2003, when U.S. agents snatched an al Qaeda suspect, known as Abu Omar, off a Milan street and secretly flew him out of the country for interrogation.

Following an investigation by Italian police, 25 alleged CIA personnel and a U.S. Air Force officer were charged with kidnapping.

Their trial in absentia is essentially over. Prosecutor Armando Spataro will be presenting his closing arguments Sept. 23, with a guilty verdict expected in October.

"I had nothing to do with the planning, and nothing to do with the kidnapping, of this guy," DeSousa said in a May interview with SpyTalk.

As for her alleged CIA employment and activities in Milan at the time of the "rendition," as the spy agency calls it, De Sousa answered, "I can't really comment."

"You can keep hammering away at me, but all I will say is I was a former federal employee," she added. "I worked for the State Department. I was second secretary at the American embassy in Rome and the consulate in Milan."

As such, she maintains, the government was obligated to defend her.

De Sousa filed suit on May 13 to force the State Department to invoke diplomatic immunity,  halt the Italian prosecution, provide her with legal counsel in Italy and pay her legal bills and other costs associated with the case.

On Wednesday, Aug. 26, the government finally relented. The Justice Department's Director of Foreign Litigation, Robert M. Hollis, notified DeSousa that it would compensate the Italian lawyer defending her in Milan.

But DeSousa was far from happy with the decision.

"I had hoped that the Obama leadership in the Departments of Justice and State would step in to do the right thing and ensure I was provided the immunity to which I was entitled rather than sacrifice me to protect the high-level officials who presumably sanctioned the incident," she told SpyTalk.

"This sends a terrible message to those in our military and diplomatic corps who risk their lives overseas to protect the interests of our country," she said.

"What happened in Italy was not a rogue operation, and we should not be treated as if it were."

The attorney representing DeSousa in her lawsuit against the State Department was equally caustic about the delay.

"One of the remedies we sought in the litigation, which was filed in May, was for the U.S. government to provide Ms. DeSousa legal counsel in Italy," said Mark S. Zaid, a Washington lawyer who specializes in the grievances of intelligence agency employees.

Zaid noted that U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Romano, also charged in the case, "had been given both U.S. military counsel and private Italian counsel, at the courtesy of the U.S. government."

He added: "For three years Ms. DeSousa requested counsel. Rather than provide counsel, the U.S. government forbade her from cooperating with or even speaking to her court appointed counsel.

"Now, three and a half years after the lawsuit was filed, and just weeks away from a verdict, out of the blue (and on the eve of the State Department's motion to dismiss her suit,) this letter arrives from the Justice Department granting our request. This is too little, too late. The criminal trial is essentially over. This is equivalent to being finally appointed the captain of an ocean liner after years of effort, but it happens to be April 14, 1912."

A Justice Department spokesman was not immediately available Friday night to respond to the complaints of DeSousa and Zaid.

The other alleged CIA defendants are being represented by Italian public defenders, according to ABC-TV reporter Matthew Cole, who is writing a book on the Milan case.

Prosecutor Spataro said in May that the defendants could face "not less than five years" in prison if they are convicted. Cole estimated some of the senior operatives on trial, such as the CIA chiefs in Rome and Milan, could theoretically face as much as 14 or 15 years in prison.

Since they are being tried in absentia, however, a guilty verdict would have no practical effect - as long as they remain in the United States.

The likelihood that the Obama administration would honor an extradition request from Italy -- in the unlikely event the pro-U.S. Berlusconi government issued one -- is unimaginable, observers say.

Wanted notices, however, are posted throughout Europe, as well as other states that are members of Interpol, which could trigger the arrest of any defendant who tries to enter them.

Spataro, whose office has also successfully prosecuted scores of terrorists, has been accused of trampling on diplomatic immunity and waging an anti-U.S. vendetta.

But the career prosecutor rejects both charges.

"Consular officers can be arrested or placed in preventive detention ... in case of serious crimes and as a result of a ruling issued by the judicial authority," he says, quoting the Vienna Convention of 1963, ratified by Italy in 1967.

Abu Omar (real name: Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr), the victim of the Milan abduction, which the CIA arranged with the aid of Italian intelligence officials, was flown to Cairo for interrogation -- and torture, he said upon surfacing years later.  He remains in Egypt.