[JURIST] Former US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) [official website] operative Sabrina de Sousa filed an appeal in Portugal’s Constitutional Court [official website] Monday in a last attempt to prevent her extradition to Italy to serve a six-year sentence for her involvement in a US extraordinary renditions program. De Sousa was arrested [JURIST report] in a Portuguese airport after she had been convicted in absentia by an Italian court for her part in the 2003 kidnapping and rendition of Egyptian terror suspect Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr. The Portugal Supreme Court [official website] rejected [AP report] her appeal of an extradition order, leaving De Sousa no choice but to argue that her extradition order is unconstitutional. A Constitutional Court official has stated that it is impossible to determine how long their decision will take.

Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, was seized on the streets of Milan in 2003 by CIA agents with the help of Italian operatives, then allegedly transferred to Egypt and tortured by Egypt’s State Security Intelligence before being released [JURIST reports] in February 2007. In September 2009 the US Department of Justice [official website] filed a motion to dismiss [JURIST report] a lawsuit brought by De Sousa seeking diplomatic immunity against the Italian charges. De Sousa was one of many operatives whose sentences were increased [JURIST report] from five to seven years in 2010 by an Italian intermediate appellate court and upheld by the Italian Court of Cassation in 2012. In February the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) [official website] condemned [JURIST report] Italy for its role in the rendition program.