CIA officer Sabrina De Sousa was skiing with her son in Northern Italy on a chilly February day in 2003 when agents snatched a suspected terrorist off the streets of Milan as part of the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program.
Fourteen years later, De Sousa faces imminent extradition from Portugal to Italy and six years in jail in connection with the abduction after being convicted in absentia by Italian courts for a decision made by the highest levels of U.S. government.
De Sousa, who no longer works for the agency, is now poised to become the first CIA officer and U.S. diplomat imprisoned over the controversial rendition program -- and is making an urgent appeal for intervention.
De Souza was working in Milan as an undercover CIA officer in 2003 when U.S. and Italian intelligence agents abducted radical Egyptian cleric, Osama Mustapha Hassan Nasr -- also known as Abu Omar -- and transported him to his native Egypt for interrogation.
In 2009, De Sousa, along with 25 other Americans, were convicted in absentia on kidnapping and other charges related to the abduction. Several were since pardoned and not one has done time in prison. The Italians also convicted Omar in absentia of "criminal association for the purposes of international terrorism" and sentenced him to six years in prison.
Phone records obtained by Italian prosecutors corroborated De Sousa's claim that she was some 130 miles away in Madonna di Campiglio, Italy, chaperoning her son's school ski trip, on the day Omar was abducted. Still, Italy brought "broad charges" against her for a plot she says she had no direct part in.
"[The Italians] said, 'She was responsible for planning and without her OK, it never would have happened,'" De Sousa told FoxNews.com. "And this came third-hand from someone who told an Italian intelligence officer."
who leaked this?