Sabrina de Sousa, Former CIA Officer HARDtalk

said it was up to individual federations to decide. And

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federations to decide. And now on UBC

federations to decide. And now on UBC News,

federations to decide. And now on UBC News, HARDtalk.

Welcome to HARDtalk with me, Zeinab Badawi.

My guest is Sabrina de Sousa, an ex-CIA spy who faces extradition

from Portugal to Italy to serve a prison sentence for her alleged

role 13 years ago in the CIA extraordinary rendition case

when an Egyptian terror suspect was seized in Milan.

She denies involvement.

Last year she visited Portugal, against official advice, and was

detained by the authorities there.

Has she been abandoned by the CIA, or is she the agent

of her own misfortune?

Sabrina de Sousa in Lisbon, welcome to HARDtalk.

So you, along with more than 20 American officials,

were found guilty in absentia in Italy because of your alleged

involvement in this particular extraordinary rendition case.

What exactly was your involvement?

Thank you, Zeinab.

I've been fighting the charges against me

for the last several years.

I've been consistent in my message that I'd like to clear my name.

So the charges against me actually have no evidence, and as you know

the entire trial took place in absentia.

We were not served or informed of the

charges against us.

So...

So you are denying any involvement whatsoever in this extraordinary

rendition case involving the Egyptian cleric

known as Abu Omar?

That is exactly correct.

But on what basis can you say that when the Italian

courts have found you, along with more than 20,

guilty for his abduction off the streets in Milan,

and the Italian judiciary is an independent one?

They must have their reasons for thinking you guilty?

Well, that goes back to what I had said a little earlier,

that this was a trial in absentia, we were not present there to defend

ourselves against the charges, you see.

This was this was 26 empty defence chairs.

We weren't allowed to present any evidence.

The evidence was covered by state secret in the US, and state secrets

in Italy, so I have never really had a chance to do that,

to counter the charges against me.

If you look at what my attorney has presented to the office

of the president as well, for the only option available to me

right now, which is the pardon process, he clearly lays out each

of the charges and how there is no evidence for any of them.

When the abduction took place itself, on the 17th of February,

I was nowhere near Milan to begin with so there was no

direct involvement either in the kidnapping of Abu Omar.

But could you not have been involved in the planning?

That is also one of the charges against me, and I deny that as well

because the planning all took place in Rome.

So here's what happened initially - 9/11 took place and the US,

under President Bush, ramped up the rendition programme.

All the chiefs of station around the world were asked to dial up

with their foreign counterparts - in this case in Italy,

the Italian intelligence service - to find out if there was any way

to work jointly in the rendition of targets deemed to be of high

value or who posed an imminent threat.

So the Rome station chief, Jeffrey Castelli, talked

to his counterpart General Pollari at the Italian intelligence,

to find out if this was a possibility,

and that they would work jointly with us on this.

Italian SISMI officials met with the CIA counterparts.

Since I was the only one who spoke both Italian and English,

in January of 2002 I facilitated the translation between both teams

to talk about the logistics of this possibility,

and after that I pretty much had no role in that, because the entire

operation was run out of Rome.

You must have known, as an employee of the CIA,

based in Italy, that this was the kind of thing that you had

signed up for?

No, this is absolutely not true.

I signed up before 9/11, and you have to remember

that the rendition, detention and interrogation programme,

which have started under Regan and sort of ramped up a little more

under President Clinton, actually took full form and really

ramped up after 9/11 under President Bush,

but it was highly compartmented, very few people knew about it,

and my only knowledge of it started when it was presented

to the Italian intelligence organisation.

Also it is a rendition, detention and interrogation programme,

so it is not possible for one officer to know all three parts

of it, because all three parts of it are completely compartmented

from each other...

Are you saying...

So I knew about the rendition bit and also, sorry, not

the entire programme, except the part where I translated

between the Italian intelligence and the group that came

from Washington to find out about the logistics for it.

But are you saying, Sabrina de Sousa, that you had no idea that

Abu Omar was going to be abducted in 2003?

You had no knowledge whatsoever that that was in the offing?

Oh, no, I knew that was in the offing, definitely,

and what we were told very specifically, which turned out not

to be the case, at the time was that there was a dangerous

cleric who posed an imminent danger, that the Italians were doing nothing

about it and he needed to be taken off the streets in Milan,

and that was what was presented as justification

to CIA headquarters.

That of course turned out not to be the case,

because once he was rendered to Egypt, the Egyptians

released him after a year for lack of prosecutable

evidence against him.

So that was the narrative that everyone was told,

including the Italians who had to approve this rendition

because Italy is a Nato country.

But you say, and you are right, yes - I mean he claims he was tortured,

electrocuted and so on when he went back,

but then he was subsequently released by the Egyptians -

however an Italian court has sentenced Abu Omar to six years

in prison for "Criminal association for the purposes

of international terrorism."

So Egypt may think he has nothing to answer for,

but Italy thinks he does.

And he was tried in absentia, so was he able to defend these

charges against him?

Yes, but I was just making the counterpoint to you -

you said that this was a man who shouldn't have been the victim

of extraordinary rendition because he was released

by the Egyptian authorities, and I am simply putting it

to you that actually he was found guilty in absentia by

an Italian court for criminal association for the purposes

of international terrorism.

So, I mean...

Right, but, sorry, that didn't fit the threshold for him to be

rendered, you see.

He was already under investigation by the Italian police and they had

dropped the investigation of him, according to Italian court

documents, in January of 2003 a couple of months

before the rendition, so they didn't consider him

an imminent danger.

All right, we are not going to try Abu Omar here again

but I want to ask you, because in 2003 when all this

happened, and as you know the climate changed very much

after September the 11th, because you're making your

opposition to rendition very clear now, but why didn't you perhaps

resign from the CIA earlier?

I'll just give you one example of what was being said by the Bush

administration at the time.

The vice president Dick Cheney said, five days after the September 11th

attacks, that the government would need to "work through the dark side.

It is going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal

basically to achieve our objectives.

A lot of what needs to be done needs to be done quietly."

That was the administration that you were serving in the CIA?

Correct.

But again we did not have all the facts with us.

And especially for someone like myself who was a junior officer

in Milan, all I was told, and again we were working

side-by-side with the Italians on counterterrorism operations,

and all we were told at the time, which turned out not to be the case,

was Abu Omar was a dangerous terrorist.

Are you saying that you oppose the rendition programmes,

which of course are highly controversial, and many countries

in the West and, you know, in the wider world say

that they are not an acceptable way of fighting the war on terror?

I mean, it is basically when a terror suspect is abducted

and taken to a third country where they may not enjoy,

well, they won't enjoy the kind of protections and human rights that

America might generally be considered to give its own citizens.

So I mean you are very opposed to these rendition programmes?

I definitely got opposed to them as the years went by,

and I saw that the narrative of "These are essential tools that

save lives and they are very useful" turned out not to be

the case, you see.

Because being on the inside, you are in a bubble,

and this happened for years after I left Milan and, you know,

if you are told, "OK, this is what it is," and you don't

see the metrics to prove that they are as useful as some

officers say they are, then you leave -

and I left in 2009 - and it really didn't make a lot

of sense to see that when you weigh the cost of the damages done

to the image of the United States, and there has been no due process

to all those who have been rendered and are now sitting in Guantanamo,

in a programme where you catch them, they get tortured, then you release

them now without due process - it just has been totally

counter-productive for us.

But you have written recently...

So this was the only recent rendition.

Go ahead.

You have written recently to Pope Francis and you said,

"Your Holiness, you have spoken decisively about rendition,

detention, and interrogation programmes.

We need your voice now more than ever to keep this issue

at the forefront for much-needed discourse in the court

of public opinion."

But the Obama administration does not support extraordinary

rendition programmes, nor does he support the enhanced

interrogation techniques that led to the waterboarding

which received so much attention.

So what kind of public debate do you want now?

This has all been condemned by the current administration.

It has been condemned by the current administration,

but again we have presidential candidates who say they will

bring it back, you see?

As in Donald Trump.

Yeah, so what's the public opinion and debate that you want?

You want to say, "America, never revert to using these techniques

in the war against terror"?

I think the public debate has to be when there's more information

and more transparency about the programmes.

That's what the Senate Torture Report is all about,

and that is what they are fighting to do, to release parts of it

so we can have this debate.

The other issue I think for everybody is the lack

of accountability that continues to dog the US administration,

because no one has ever been held accountable in the United States.

Now there are cases that have been opened for example in Berlin,

focusing on specific officials who had made a decision,

for example in the Khalid El-Masri case, that rendition.

All the cases that were brought on his behalf were dismissed

because of state secrets.

Finally now the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights has

brought a case against a specific individual,

so we have to have some accountability and we have

to examine what has been done so that the public knows

the same ones who want...

We have had a lot of reports and investigations.

I mean, notably in 2014 the Senate Intelligence Committee

report on CIA torture brought in by the Democrats condemned

all these kind of things going on.

You make it sound as though these things are going

on unchallenged and that, you know, nobody says

they are a very distasteful way of conducting affairs.

So I'm just really struggling to see what more you feel your voice

is bringing to this debate?

I think the issue of state secrets and that they impede

real investigations.

There are numerous investigations that still need to take place.

I am looking at my own Abu Omar case, where I believe there has

to be real investigations into this, because there has been no

accountability for those who provided the justification

for this ill-conceived and unnecessary rendition,

or those who authorised it.

That's what I'm talking about.

Just looking at your own predicament now, because there you are,

I am talking to you in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal,

and you travelled there, against official advice

from the United States.

The CIA and the State Department advised you not to travel outside

the US when the case was proceeding in Italy in 2009 and then

when the Italians issued the arrest warrant for you,

which by the way has been upheld, hasn't it?

You were told not to leave the United States.

Why didn't you comply?

So I left the United States...

Number one, I had to resign, so I couldn't

leave the United States, except for coming to Europe.

Because you see most of my family live abroad -

they live in Europe.

My mother lives in India, and everywhere else in the world.

What happened was in 2014 I found out that I was excluded

from the list of pardons that was sent over to the Italian

president's office.

That meant I would never ever be able to visit my family in Portugal.

I was born a Portuguese citizen - most of my family

is over here as well.

And I just decided this needed to be dealt with head-on and, yes,

I took the risk to do this and it is just something that needs

to be done, because this is where the accountability comes in.

I'm being held accountable for decisions made by others,

for which I had absolutely no control over or input

into, this rendition.

You say that you had to travel to see your family,

but why do you think when you asked for your family members,

your mother in particular, to be allowed to come

to the United States to see you, why was that not approved?

She wasn't given a visa.

You also wanted her funding covered.

Well, it was funding covered because she needed to be escorted

firstly to Bombay to get her visa back again,

to the States and back again, and I had asked in July

for her to come for Christmas, and in January the following year

they refused saying they didn't want to set a precedent

for funding her to come to the US.

But is it not the fact, Sabrina de Sousa, that

as Paul McGrath from the University of Birmingham here in England says,

the fact that you effectively wanted to force Washington's hand

by travelling to Europe to clear your name, you're

kind of upping the ante?

It might be seen by the US authorities as a deliberate

provocation on your part?

Possibly, but again being left off the pardons and being punished for

speaking out all these years again wasn't something that I felt I

should have to put up with for the rest of my life,

because this meant the rest of my life - being excluded

from the pardon meant I would never get a pardon,

and the arrest warrant would remain in effect, and I would

never see this part of my family again.

When you asked why you weren't given a pardon, what was the

answer that you were given?

No, I found out about it.

My attorney in Italy sent me a note in 2014 saying,

by the way, do you know that the US has asked

for pardons for a group of

officers and you've been excluded from that list?

Do you know anything about it?

And I said no, then I made that a matter of record

by writing a letter

to the law firm in Italy handling the pardons.

So there's no explanation for why I was left off

the pardons, but again to me, with family all over

Europe and in India, it was really important that this

issue gets resolved.

You have to remember, too, that we were told

in 2008 before the trial ended that we were going to get

convicted, and that all of us would immediately get the pardon right

after that.

Sure.

2013 came, one officer got a pardon.

So my attorney went to the office of the

president to ask why, when someone with worse

charges against him was

given a pardon and I was not, what was going on with it, and they

hadn't even looked at my file, which is exactly...

The pardon that is sponsored by the US, and that is

what I need to find out, whether this option is available

to me any more or not.

Do you think perhaps that you're seen as somebody

who shouldn't really be addressing these kinds of issues

in the public domain, because you say, you know,

you want to clear your name, you want evidence to come out,

but you know that a lot of the evidence pertaining to this

case is going to come under national security,

and it can't be divulged, therefore, and I put

to you what Scott Lucas from Birmingham University in the UK

said of your case and the others who were convicted:

"I know of no other case in the CIA's history

where officers were convicted by court in allied country.

Previous cases of CIA excesses on foreign soil would generally be

handled by discreet contacts between diplomatic services."

That's exactly right.

I mean, wouldn't it be better for you to do

battle behind-the-scenes, precisely for the reason that has

been laid out there?

I have spent about eight years I would say doing exactly

that, I exhausted every internal option in the CIA.

Finally, by law, since I had exhausted all

the options in the CIA, I went to the Congress

of the United States.

I had numerous letters written to the

Congress of the United States, Senators who chaired the

intelligence committees, asking them to please

intercede in this case.

Primarily this was initially because I was worried

about my family and the ability to see my parents.

I worked this all the way till I finally

decided that it had to be a matter, it had to get into the public

domain.

You have to remember that this case did not have to take

place.

This was done just because of one person's ambition - literally.

This was an individual, Abu Omar, who had not

even come to the attention of anyone in the rendition

unit in the CIA, and

they just wondered why he was being rendered in the first place.

So I did everything I could.

I did every single thing I could quietly.

I even offered to resign quietly if they

gave me my pension and I would go off and, you know, hope that they

proceeded with the pardon like they had promised.

But essentially you became a whistle-blower, didn't you?

Essentially that's what you are no.

Well, I really don't like to call myself a whistle-blower because I'm

not blowing the whistle on the entire programme since I'm not...

I just can't speak about it, because I

was not part of that programme.

But what I am doing is defending myself

against the charges against me, and again

when you talked about, you

know, your charges would require state secrets - mine don't.

My attorney Dario Bolognesi has made an excellent point

on each of those charges against me, and they really don't require

divulging state secrets to counter them.

But now, here you are in Portugal.

As I said, you decided to travel there despite the fact

that there was a Europol arrest warrant out for you,

so you knew that you would be detained by the authorities -

do you think now that the Portuguese will extradite you to Italy?

I don't know what's going to happen right now because the extradition

process seems to have stopped.

Also you need to know that I came here in May of last year

and for all the way until October no one asked for my extradition.

My attorney from Italy came to visit me in Portugal,

dialogue with the president's office in Italy.

They knew I was over here and no one asked for the extradition.

When I decided to go see my mother again and leave Portugal,

that was when the Schengen information system kicked in,

and that is when I was detained.

So again I understand that...

So you won't be extradited?

Because we are all saying you are the ex-CIA spy

who is going to go to Italy and spend four years in prison,

but your own legal representative in Portugal, Manuel Magalhaes e

Silva, says Italy does not want extradition to go ahead.

They're trying to get the Portuguese courts to stop the extradition.

He says the Italian government won't want to see the level

of cooperation between them and the United States exposed.

So you're not going to end up going to Italy, are you?

Well, OK, here is the other thing...

Briefly, if you would?

I volunteered to go to Italy.

OK, I volunteered to go to Italy when I first got to Portugal.

I said, I'll go there, I'll meet with the officers

in charge of the pardon and we'll talk about these charges against me,

and we can take care of it, sort it all out.

I had volunteered to do that.

There is no need for this long extradition process.

In the meantime, it just keeps cropping up in the news.

All right, so do you feel that you've been abandoned

by the US authorities?

Oh, I absolutely have been abandoned, and again this is not

something that should happen to federal employees at my level

for decisions made much higher up and where there has been

no accountability whatsoever.

This is a classic case of totally being...

Literally I've had to fight this on my own, because I have had no

help from the US to do so.

And furthermore, then I was excluded from this pardon system,

at the end of the day.

Very quickly, are you not also to some extent an agent

of your own misfortune?

I don't think so.

I really would like to see this resolved, and there

are ways of resolving it, and it should be resolved

immediately without any further ado because again,

like I said, the charges against me, they really have no

evidence to back them up.

Sabrina de Sousa in Lisbon, thank you very much indeed

for common on HARDtalk.

Thank you.

Hello there.

As forecast, the weather over the weekend was pretty decent up

and down the UK.

We had a lot of dry weather.

Variable cloud at times, which did produce the odd

spot of rain.

But there were plenty of gaps in that cloud,