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Former CIA officer the U.S.Breaks silence on the 2003 Italian illegal abduction
names names.
A former CIA officer has broken the U.S. silence around the 2003 abduction of a radical Islamist cleric in Italy, charging that the agency inflated the threat the preacher posed and that the United States then allowed Italy to prosecute her and other Americans to shield President George W. Bush and other U.S. officials from responsibility for approving the operation.
snip......
The cleric, Osama Mustapha Hassan Nasr, was snatched from a Milan street by a team of CIA operatives and flown to Egypt, where he was held for the better part of four years without charges and allegedly tortured. An Egyptian court in 2007 ruled that his imprisonment was unfounded and ordered him released.
snip....
The former CIA station chief in Rome, Jeffrey Castelli, whom she called the mastermind of the operation, exaggerated Nasrs terrorist threat to win approval for the rendition and misled his superiors that Italian military intelligence had agreed to the operation.
Senior CIA officials, including then-CIA Director George Tenet, approved the operation even though there were doubts about Castellis case Nasr wasnt wanted in Egypt and wasnt on the U.S. list of top al Qaida terrorists.
Condoleezza Rice, then the White House national security adviser, also had concerns about the case, especially what Italy would do if the CIA were caught, but she eventually agreed to it and recommended that Bush approve the abduction.
De Sousa said her assertions are based on classified CIA cables that she read before resigning from the agency in February 2009, as well as on Italian legal documents and Italian news reports. She denies that she was involved in the operation, though she acknowledges that she served as the interpreter for a CIA snatch team that visited Milan in 2002 to plan the abduction.
I was being held accountable for decisions that someone else took and I wanted to see on what basis the decisions were made, she said, explaining why she had delved into the CIA archives. And especially because I was willing to talk to the Hill (Congress) about this because I knew that the CIA would not be upfront with them.
I dont have any of the cables with me. Please put that down, De Sousa added with a nervous laugh, her unease reflecting the Obama administrations unprecedented crackdown on leaks of classified information to journalists.
snip
More than 130 people were rendered in this way, according to a February 2013 study by the Open Society Justice Initiative, a U.S.-based group that promotes the rule of law. Many were tortured and abused, and many, including Nasr, were freed for lack of proof that they were hatching terrorist plots, said Amrit Singh, the studys author.
Human rights groups and many legal experts denounce rendition as violating not only U.S. and international law, but also the laws of the nations where abductions occurred and of the countries to which suspected terrorists were sent. In December 2005, Rice defended renditions as legal, however, calling them a vital tool that predated the 9/11 attacks. She denied that the United State transported anyone . . . to a country where we believe he or she will be tortured.
The Bush and Obama administrations have never acknowledged U.S. involvement in the Nasr rendition, which makes De Sousas decision to speak publicly about it significant, Singh said.
Any public account of what happened and who was ultimately responsible is of considerable interest, she said. Despite the scale of the human rights violations associated with the rendition program, the United States hasnt held a single individual accountable.
The CIA declined to comment, but a former senior U.S. intelligence official called De Sousas narrative fairly consistent with the recollections of other former CIA officials with knowledge of the operation. He asked not to be further identified because the matter remains classified.
There was concern on the seventh floor about this operation, he said, referring to the executive offices at the CIAs headquarters in Langley, Va. But they were reassured by the Rome station and the agencys European directorate that everything was OK and everyone was on board in the country in question.
De Sousa accused Italian leaders of colluding with the United States to shield Bush, Rice, Tenet and senior CIA aides by declining to prosecute them or even demanding that Washington publicly admit to staging the abduction.
Calling the operation unjustified and illegal, De Sousa said Italy and the United States cooperated in scape-goating a bunch of people . . . while the ones who approved this stupid rendition are all free.
The Senate and House intelligence committees enabled the coverup, De Sousa added, by failing to treat her as a whistleblower after she told them of the lack of prosecutable evidence against Nasr and what she called her own mistreatment by the CIA that compelled her to resign in 2009.
Despite that, no ones been held accountable, she said.
De Sousa, 57, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Indias state of Goa, was one of 23 Americans convicted in absentia in 2009 by a Milan court for Nasrs abduction. She received a five-year sentence. An appeals court in 2011 added two more years, and Italys Supreme Court upheld the sentence. Nineteen of the Americans, De Sousa said, dont exist, because they were aliases used by the CIA snatch team.
The case drew fresh attention this month when Panama detained Robert Seldon Lady, the CIAs former Milan station chief, whom the Italian court had sentenced to nine years in prison. But Panama released him within 24 hours and allowed him to fly to the United States, rather than wait for Italy to request his extradition.
Another convicted American, Air Force Col. Joseph Romano, who oversaw security at Aviano, the U.S. base from which Nasr was flown out of Italy, received a seven-year term. But Italian President Giorgio Napolitano pardoned him in April under U.S. pressure.
The Bush and the Obama administrations, however, have refused to ask Italy to do the same for De Sousa, who insists that she qualified for diplomatic immunity as a second secretary accredited to the U.S. Embassy in Rome.
Its always the minions of the federal government who are thrown under the bus by officials who consistently violate international law and sometimes domestic law and who are all immune from prosecution, De Sousa said. Their lives are fine. Theyre making millions of dollars sitting on (corporate) boards.
De Sousas interviews with McClatchy are the first in which shes publicly disclosed her decade-long career in the CIAs undercover arm, the National Clandestine Service. Shes discussed the case with news media before, but insisted in those interviews and in Italian legal proceedings that she was a diplomat.
Her only connection to the rendition, she said, was translating between the CIA snatch team and officers from the Italian military intelligence service formerly known by the acronym SISMi.
The translating stint was legal at the time because SISMi was involved in planning Nasrs rendition, although SISMi later refused to participate, she said. She said that she was away with her son on a skiing trip when Nasr was abducted.
According to De Sousa, the Bush administration had two thresholds for an extraordinary rendition: A target had to be on a U.S. list of top al Qaida terrorists who posed a clear and imminent danger to American and allied lives, and the nation where an operation was planned had to make the arrest.
Neither occurred with Nasr, De Sousa said.
snip......
But DIGOS made no move to arrest Nasr, De Sousa said, because it had no evidence that he was plotting any attacks. He knew that he was being monitored, she said.
Castelli, however, was eager to pull off a rendition, she said, explaining that after 9/11, everyone around the world was being pressed by CIA headquarters to do something against al Qaida. Castelli, she said, was ambitious and saw a rendition as a ticket to promotion.
Castelli went to SISMi to ask them to work on the rendition program, and SISMi says no, De Sousa recounted. That, however, didnt stop Jeff, she said.
snip.......
Castelli was hell-bent on doing a rendition, she said, and he pressed the director of SISMi at the time, Nicollo Pollari, throughout 2002 to agree, according to cables De Sousa found between Castelli and CIA headquarters.
This is very important, because there is a written trail of what was going on, she said.
Pollari refused to budge, telling Castelli that the rendition would be an illegal operation . . . unless the magistrates approved it, De Sousa said. Pollari, she said, wanted to wait until the Italian Parliament passed intelligence reform legislation that would have allowed SISMi broader counterterrorism powers.
Castellis superiors at Langley insisted that SISMi and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi had to agree to the operation, or they couldnt go to Condoleezza Rice and the president of the United States for authorization, De Sousa said.
So what does Castelli say? Castelli says, Well, I talked to Pollari and hes not going to put anything in writing. But wink, wink, nod, nod. You know, wink, wink, hes provided a tacit sort of approval. They are not going to put anything in writing, she said.
snip
Yet DIGOS wasnt overly concerned because there really wasnt anything . . . to show that he was actually going to do this, De Sousa said. If they thought he (Nasr) was going to go bomb something right away, they would have stopped him, right? Its not in the . . . Italians interest . . . for anything to happen on Italian soil of that nature, because the majority of the students were Italian or nationalities other than American.
That happened in 2002, and Nasr wasnt rendered until 2003. So what imminent danger was that? she asked.
The rendition had another problem: There was no outstanding arrest warrant for Nasr from Egypt, she said. To resolve the issue, Castelli asked the CIAs Cairo station to request one from Omar Suleiman, the powerful intelligence czar for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The warrant was issued. Later, after Nasr had been turned over to the Egyptians, the CIA station in Cairo asked Castelli for the evidence the Egyptians needed to prosecute.
snip.....
Despite concerns with the strength of Castellis case, CIA headquarters still agreed to move forward and seek Rices approval, De Sousa said. She recalled reading a cable from late 2002 that reported that Rice was worried about whether CIA personnel would go to jail if they were caught.
In response, she said, Castelli wrote that any CIA personnel who were caught would just be expelled from Italy and SISMi will bail everyone out.
Of her CIA superiors, De Sousa said, They knew this (the rendition) was bullshit, but they were just allowing it. These guys approved it based on what Castelli was saying even though they knew it never met the threshold for rendition.
Asked which agency officials would have been responsible for reviewing the operation and agreeing to ask Rice for Bushs authorization, De Sousa said they would have included Tenet; Tyler Drumheller, who ran the CIAs European operations; former CIA Director of Operations James Pavitt and his then-deputy, Stephen Kappes; Jose Rodriguez, then the head of the CIAs Counterterrorism Center, and former acting CIA General Counsel John Rizzo.
An Italian prosecutor began investigating the CIAs role in Nasrs disappearance in 2004, carefully building a case based on the CIA rendition teams sloppy use of cellular telephones and credit cards. By then De Sousa had returned to the United States and had assumed a new CIA position at headquarters.
She was charged by Italian authorities in 2006 in the last of three sets of indictments.
The Bush administration remained silent on the Italian charges and ignored De Sousas pleas to invoke diplomatic immunity on her behalf. The CIA barred her from contacting her Italian state-appointed public defender, she said, and refused to pay for a private lawyer. The CIA also ordered her not to leave the country, an order she says she disobeyed to fly to India to see her father for the last time as he lay dying from cancer.
De Sousa later learned that Rice, after becoming secretary of state, wanted to give her immunity, but that the CIA told Rice not to because doing so would have been admitting that the rendition took place, De Sousa said.
Meanwhile, Castelli, who has retired from the CIA, escaped conviction after an Italian judge conferred diplomatic immunity on him even though Washington hadnt asked for it, De Sousa said. Earlier this year, an appeals court revoked his immunity and sentenced him in absentia to seven years in jail.
De Sousa said that she has tried for years to report what she said was the baseless case for Nasrs abduction and her shoddy treatment by the CIA and two administrations.
Her pleas and letters, however, were ignored by successive U.S. intelligence leaders, the CIA inspector generals office, members and staff of the House and Senate intelligence committees, Rice, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Attorney General Eric Holder, said De Sousa.
sniip..
De Sousa wanted to resign from the CIA earlier than she did, but, she said, her attorney persuaded her to wait for Barack Obama to take office because he might be more sympathetic to her case.
We thought, Hope and change. But no hope and change happened, she said.
snip.......
Asked why shed agreed to be interviewed, De Sousa replied, I find this coverup so egregious. Thats why I find it really important to talk about this. Look at the lives ruined, including that of Abu Omar. And I was caught in the crossfire of anger directed at U.S. policy.
Now, she noted, she also could face prosecution in the United States for revealing what she has. Youve seen whats happened lately to anyone who has tried to disclose anything, she said.
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/07/27/197823/us-allowed-italian-kidnap-prosecution.html#.UfPYQuCiqkJ#storylink=cpy
before I edit you need to go to the link and read the snips.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)I wonder when this story will break out.. I think its pretty important. Damn leakers.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)That is so NAZI, it turns my stomach.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)Her lawyer ask her to wait for hope and change....that was interesting.
iemitsu
(3,888 posts)bits of information about her I have ever read, that she was concerned about agents going to prison and that she wanted to provide immunity to De Souza. I didn't think she had that much of a heart.
Of course, in the end she didn't actually help any of those involved.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)This information would have been a lot more useful a few years ago.
think
(11,641 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)Still, why not in 2005 through 2009?
Like I said, the information would have been a lot more useful then. The CIA investigations were still ungoing.
think
(11,641 posts)Ask Ellsberg.....
ProSense
(116,464 posts)I still think this would have had more impact several years ago, even in 2009 (when she resigned).
think
(11,641 posts)and members of all 3 branches of govt were illegally wiretapped including Obama and Hillary Clinton.
But perhaps he feared for his life and being prosecuted.
Imagine that.....
ProSense
(116,464 posts)think
(11,641 posts)think
(11,641 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)think
(11,641 posts)And no I wish Tice would have felt free to tell the American people back then. I'm not condoning the lawlessness that you ignore.
I just understand that he was taking huge risks to his life and liberty which you so conveniently brush off...
ProSense
(116,464 posts)You do. Timeliness matters. What good would it have done to expose Bush's illegal spying after he left office or ten years later?
think
(11,641 posts)and blaming whistleblowers who don't speak out immediately.
Thanks for your help.....
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"Yes, I see you speaking out ALL THE TIME about SNOWDEN"
Criticism of Snowden has nothing to do with this.
It also has nothing to do with you using fear as justification for not speaking out.
think
(11,641 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)think
(11,641 posts)think
(11,641 posts)for not speaking out of fear and yet the only way they can is to break the law. When they break the law to tell the truth you vilify them.
Nice work.....
think
(11,641 posts)snappyturtle
(14,656 posts)article and video about him. It's in the left hand column....scroll down to NSA whistleblower.....
http://www.bradblog.com/?cat=108
Russell Tice came out the day after the inauguration of President Obama hoping for a better climate for acceptance of his knowledge!
On the Brad Blog page is a link to a NYTimes article published in 2005, It was originally slated for publication in 2004 but the then WH requested it not be published. A year later after some 'cleaning up' of the information disclosed the NYTimes published it. Quite a read....
think
(11,641 posts)I am familiar with this but had forgotten.
think
(11,641 posts)level of clearance to classified information.
How crazy is that?
~Snip~
In a letter dated January 10, 2006, Renee Seymour, Director of the NSA Special Access Programs Central Office, warned Tice that members of neither the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, nor of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence had clearance to receive the classified information about the SAP's that Tice was prepared to provide..
~Snip~
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russ_Tice
snappyturtle
(14,656 posts)really didn't want to know. Knowing would have meant having to do something.
Go figure!
deurbano
(2,894 posts)<<The CIA declined to comment, but a former senior U.S. intelligence official called De Sousas narrative fairly consistent with the recollections of other former CIA officials with knowledge of the operation. He asked not to be further identified because the matter remains classified
.
De Sousa accused Italian leaders of colluding with the United States to shield Bush, Rice, Tenet and senior CIA aides by declining to prosecute them or even demanding that Washington publicly admit to staging the abduction.
Calling the operation unjustified and illegal, De Sousa said Italy and the United States cooperated in scape-goating a bunch of people . . . while the ones who approved this stupid rendition are all free.
The Senate and House intelligence committees enabled the coverup, De Sousa added, by failing to treat her as a whistleblower after she told them of the lack of prosecutable evidence against Nasr and what she called her own mistreatment by the CIA that compelled her to resign in 2009.
Despite that, no ones been held accountable, she said
..
De Sousa said that she has tried for years to report what she said was the baseless case for Nasrs abduction and her shoddy treatment by the CIA and two administrations.
Her pleas and letters, however, were ignored by successive U.S. intelligence leaders, the CIA inspector generals office, members and staff of the House and Senate intelligence committees, Rice, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Attorney General Eric Holder, said De Sousa
.
De Sousa wanted to resign from the CIA earlier than she did, but, she said, her attorney persuaded her to wait for Barack Obama to take office because he might be more sympathetic to her case.
We thought, Hope and change. But no hope and change happened, she said
.
Asked why shed agreed to be interviewed, De Sousa replied, I find this coverup so egregious. Thats why I find it really important to talk about this. Look at the lives ruined, including that of Abu Omar. And I was caught in the crossfire of anger directed at U.S. policy.
Now, she noted, she also could face prosecution in the United States for revealing what she has. Youve seen whats happened lately to anyone who has tried to disclose anything, she said.>>
Response to ProSense (Reply #11)
Mojorabbit This message was self-deleted by its author.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)thanks for the kick
ProSense
(116,464 posts)Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)Reuters) - Former CIA Milan station chief Robert Seldon Lady, convicted in Italy of kidnapping an Egyptian Muslim cleric, has been arrested in Panama, Italian and Panamanian officials said on Thursday.
Italy's top court last year upheld a guilty verdict against Seldon Lady for the kidnapping of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)So speaking out BEFORE the trial is good?
ProSense
(116,464 posts)The bullshit straw man is unnecessary.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)Oh, wait you already did.
this bit of news I posted seems to have got your goat.
Should the CIA agent in Panama been extradited at Interpol's request?
Was Panama threaten by the US to let him go?
I know your games.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"How soon until you attack the whistle blower? Oh, wait you already did. "
...attempting to start Straw Men R US?
I'll repeat my very first comment in the thread.
What took so long? Ten years?
This information would have been a lot more useful a few years ago.
If you consider that an attack, that's your issue, not mine.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)Which I hope all will read.
1-Old-Man
(2,667 posts)I recall reading that a CIA (or Ex-CIA) Official was detained in Panama last week at the request of the Italians, who had convicted him for a kidnapping earlier. It sounded like he would be extradited straight into a prison, but I didn't see any more about it. Is this the same case?
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)Italy's moderate newspaper.
http://themoderatevoice.com/184760/with-robert-seldon-lady-america-humiliates-italy-la-repubblica-italy/
1-Old-Man
(2,667 posts)Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)And not for the leakers but for the people doing these renditions, no doubt most of them phoney, truth be told.
We need a general amnesty for leakers too.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)They got convictions after a lengthy trial.
Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)Aimed at the NSA and CIA, etc. Granted, a lot more political momentum would be needed.
think
(11,641 posts)Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)this goes to far up the chain of command and affects too many powerful players.... besides 'its off the table'
Watergate ..... Iran Contra.... SNL
those days are gone and they an't coming back.
It has to go to the Hague but we are no longer signatories.
I don't expect Obama to sign anytime soon.
noise
(2,392 posts)with excessive secrecy and abuse of classification.
What makes it worse is the way high level officials self righteously pass themselves off as super patriots. Acting as if they are being persecuted for trying to protect the Homeland.
Savannahmann
(3,891 posts)I'm still waiting for those who demand Snowden come home and face the justice for his actions to demand that these CIA types get their asses to Italy and face the music for their actions.
Response to Savannahmann (Reply #35)
Maedhros This message was self-deleted by its author.
hootinholler
(26,449 posts)whttevrr
(2,345 posts)Now I'm probably being watched because of my google searches.
Can we just go back to hating Romney?
Catherina
(35,568 posts)So 2 administrations collude with foreign government to cover up criminal complicity in renditions and then abandon the lower level CIA employees to the wolves "scape-goating a bunch of people . . . while the ones who approved this stupid rendition are all free".
I hope everyone interested in how deep this goes, how Snowden's revelations are only the TIP OF THE ICEBERG, read the whole article. When Snowden said the Gang of Eight has been covering for crimes, he wasn't lying. Nor were the other NSA whistleblowers who said the same thing.
The whole house of cards about our "war on terror" crimes is at risk of falling down right now. They're not flipping out, from Bush Sr's bat cave to the current administration, only because of what Snowden is leaking but because Snowden's "courage is contagious" and all sorts of inter-agency abuses, violating human rights around the world in the most obscene manner, are coming to light now. Gawd, no wonder the people on the payroll are tripping all over themselves spinning like mad right now. Cheney didn't get dragged out of his bat cave just because they're spying on Americans.
This is so grotesque. I can't recommend your thread highly enough.
...
Another convicted American, Air Force Col. Joseph Romano, who oversaw security at Aviano, the U.S. base from which Nasr was flown out of Italy, received a seven-year term. But Italian President Giorgio Napolitano pardoned him in April under U.S. pressure.
...
Its always the minions of the federal government who are thrown under the bus by officials who consistently violate international law and sometimes domestic law and who are all immune from prosecution, De Sousa said. Their lives are fine. Theyre making millions of dollars sitting on (corporate) boards.
...
This is very important, because there is a written trail of what was going on, she said.
...
Her pleas and letters, however, were ignored by successive U.S. intelligence leaders, the CIA inspector generals office, members and staff of the House and Senate intelligence committees, Rice, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Attorney General Eric Holder
[hr]
User avatar for AhBrightWings
AhBrightWings
17 June 2013 2:12pm
My question: given the enormity of what you are facing now in terms of repercussions, can you describe the exact moment when you knew you absolutely were going to do this, no matter the fallout, and what it now feels like to be living in a post-revelation world? Or was it a series of moments that culminated in action? I think it might help other people contemplating becoming whistleblowers if they knew what the ah-ha moment was like. Again, thanks for your courage and heroism.
Answer:
I imagine everyone's experience is different, but for me, there was no single moment. It was seeing a continuing litany of lies from senior officials to Congress - and therefore the American people - and the realization that that Congress, specifically the ***Gang of Eight***, wholly supported the lies that compelled me to act. Seeing someone in the position of James Clapper - the Director of National Intelligence - baldly lying to the public without repercussion is the evidence of a subverted democracy. The consent of the governed is not consent if it is not informed.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023033003
[hr]
The Gang of Eight
Background
The President of the United States is required by 50 U.S.C. § 413(a)(1) to "ensure that the congressional intelligence committees are kept fully and currently informed of the intelligence activities of the United States." However, under 50 U.S.C. § 413b(c)(2), the President may elect to report instead to the Gang of Eight when he thinks "it is essential to limit access" to information about a covert action.[not verified in body]
...
The individuals are sworn to secrecy and there is no vote process
The term "Gang of Eight" gained wide currency in the coverage of the Bush administration's warrantless domestic spying program, in the context that no members of Congress other than the Gang of Eight were informed of the program, and they were forbidden to disseminate knowledge of the program to other members of Congress. The Bush administration has asserted that the briefings delivered to the Gang of Eight sufficed to provide Congressional oversight of the program and preserve the checks and balances between the executive and legislative branches.[1]
Members of the Gang of Eight (intelligence)
United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence:Mike Rogers (R): (Chair)
C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D): (Ranking member)
United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:Dianne Feinstein (D): (Chair)
Saxby Chambliss (R): (Ranking member)
Leadership in theUnited States House of Representatives:John Boehner (R): (Speaker of the House)
Nancy Pelosi (D): (Minority leader)
Leadership in the United States Senate:Harry Reid (D): (Majority leader)
Mitch McConnell (R): (Minority leader)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_of_Eight_%28intelligence%29
[hr]
Btw, McClatchy just loaded a video to accompany your thread.
uploaded by McClatchyDC·96 videos
GoneFishin
(5,217 posts)They understand that a few brave truth tellers could trigger an avalanche of other truth tellers. And they react heavy handedly to scare the shit out of future whistleblowers. I hope their hard ass tactics bite them in the ass, and rather than scaring potential whistleblowers into hiding, it jolts them into action as they see that they are not lone witnesses to the security state abuses.
forestpath
(3,102 posts)Solly Mack
(90,758 posts)malaise
(268,715 posts)The shit is hitting the fan.
Mnemosyne
(21,363 posts)wildbilln864
(13,382 posts)DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)''It has become appallingly clear that our technology has surpassed our humanity.''
~Albert Einstein