Honorable President Barack H.

Obama ID: LFG-2016-0031

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW

Washington, DC 20500

Sent via: Mail

October 6th, 2016

Honorable President Barack H. Obama,

My name is Isaiah X. Smith and I am sending you this letter out of serious concern over Ms. Sabrina De
Sousa (Ms. De Sousa), a former Foreign Service Officer for the Department of State (State) that
currently has a warrant issued for her arrest in Italy as for an operation by the Central intelligence
Agency that went wrong. Ms. De Sousa was a diplomatic agent and was a consular officer due to the
fact that she was a diplomatic staff of the Embassy of the United States of America and also due to the
fact that part of her official position was the exercise of her consular functions. See Article 1 of the
Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961 and Article 1 of the Vienna Convention on Consular
Relations. Ms. De Sousa should have been granted diplomatic and consular immunity for her official
government conduct, duties and activities in the course as to her official duties in a Italy.

Ms. Sabrina De Sousa was accused of being involved in the kidnapping of Abu Omar, a Muslim extremist,
on February 17th, 2003 by an Italian Court. She was convicted of kidnapping as in her role on November
4th, 2009 by an Italian court. I hope that you are aware that the Diplomatic Relations Act of 1978, 22
U.S.C. 254d stipulates that any action brought against an individual who is entitled to immunity shall be
dismissed subsequent to a motion by or on behalf of the individual that demonstrates that he/she is in
fact entitled to immunity. Therefore I strongly believe that Ms. De Sousa should be granted immunity.

Currently Ms. De Sousa resides in Portugal and the Portuguese Supreme Court and Constitutional Court
have upheld De Sousa's extradition. Any day now Ms. De Sousa is expected to be extradited to Italy for
prosecution. Please note that at no point have any government officials with the United States of
America intervened and declared that Ms. De Sousa has diplomatic and or consular immunity even
though her previous counsel has requested the government to do so. See Exhibit 1.

Employees and officials with the Central Intelligence Agency have to be protected from harm because
they have the intent as to making sure that our nation stays safe from harm. Therefore I would sincerely
ask you President Barack H. Obama, of the United States of America, to grant Ms. Sabrina De Sousa
immunity.
Respectfully,

Isaiah X. Smith

Isaiah Smith Campaign

P.O Box 163411

Fort Worth, Texas, 76161

www.isaiahxsmith.com
EXHIBIT 1
 MARK S. ZAID, P.C.
Attorney-At-Law
1250 CONNECTICUT AVENUE, N.W.
SUITE 200
WASHINGTON, DC 20036
______

TELEPHONE: (202) 454-2809

FACSIMILE: ( 2 0 2 ) 3 3 0 - 5 6 1 0

MARK S. ZAID, MANAGING PARTNER (admitted in CT, DC, MD, NY)

E-MAIL: MARK@MARKZAID.COM
BRADLEY P. MOSS, ASSOCIATE (admitted in DC, IL)
E-MAIL: BRAD@MARKZAID.COM
ILANA S. GREENSTEIN, OF COUNSEL (admitted in DC, MD)
E-MAIL: ILANA@MARKZAID.COM

October 22, 2012

VIA CERTIFIED MAIL

Hillary Clinton
Secretary of State
Department of State
2201 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20520

Dear Secretary Clinton:

I am writing to you on behalf of Sabrina De Sousa (Ms. De Sousa), a former Foreign

Service Officer for the Department of State (State). As you are likely aware, Ms. De Sousa, as
well as 22 other current and former U.S. Government officials, has been tried and convicted in
absentia in Italy for her alleged involvement in the alleged extraordinary rendition in 2003 of
terrorist suspect, Usama Mustafa Hassan Nasr (Abu Omar). That conviction was upheld by
Italys highest criminal court on September 19, 2012. There remains an outstanding EUROPOL
warrant for Ms. De Sousas arrest and she risks arrest and imprisonment by merely leaving the
territorial boundaries of the United States.

To date, neither State in particular nor the U.S. Government as a whole has voluntarily taken
any action on behalf of Ms. De Sousa. She was barred from speaking with her Italian
Government-appointed defense counsel and was not provided with private defense counsel of her
own until after our office initiated litigation seeking, among other things, to compel the
Department of Justice (DOJ) to provide funding to hire such private counsel.1 Despite the fact
that during Ms. De Sousas tour of duties in Italy first in Rome from 1998 until 2001 and then
in Milan from 2001 to 2004 she held valid Commissions stipulating that she held immunity
protections as a diplomatic and consular official serving on behalf of the U.S. Government, no
action has ever been taken by State to invoke (or conversely waive) immunity on Ms. De Sousas
behalf with respect to the Italian criminal or civil proceedings. She has, in effect, been
abandoned by the very agency and Government she dutifully served for over a decade.

1
By the time the DOJ did in fact provide that funding, the Italian criminal proceedings had been
ongoing for three years and were nearing their final stages.
 Equally as troubling throughout the course of this entire international saga has been the
apparent disinterest on the part of the U.S. Government to investigate allegations that Abu Omar
was allegedly tortured by Egyptian Government officials (with or without the assistance or
involvement of U.S. Government personnel) after allegedly having been transferred to Egypt by
the U.S. Government by way of an alleged extraordinary rendition. See http://tinyurl.com/l9yelg.
Under 18 U.S.C. 113C, the codification of the U.S.s ratification of and compliance with the
U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment (CAT), any U.S. national who commits an act of torture outside of the United
States is subject to criminal penalties of up to 20 years in prison. See 18 U.S.C. 2340A(a).

Notwithstanding this self-imposed obligation to prosecute such criminal offenses, there is no

indication that the U.S. Government has conducted any semblance of an inquiry classified or
not into whether U.S. nationals were involved in the alleged torture of Abu Omar. This lack of
action is particularly disconcerting given the presence of noted human rights advocates on your
staff, such as Michael H. Posner, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy,
Human Rights and Labor, who previously served as President of Human Rights First and who
presumably was selected to serve at least in part due to his past human rights work . When
combined with the Justice Departments recent discretionary determination to decline to
prosecute any of the deaths that allegedly resulted from the use of enhanced interrogation
techniques in Afghanistan in 2002 and Iraq in 2003, see http://tinyurl.com/94bn6jd, it feeds the
narrative overseas that the U.S. Government will not hold accountable its own personnel who
violate criminal prohibitions on torture. I would respectfully submit that this course of action,
particularly your agencys declination to conduct any inquiry, puts U.S. Government officials
serving overseas including those with valid diplomatic paperwork at increased risk of being
subjected to politicized criminal proceedings in foreign courts for actions that they committed in
the course of their official duties, as well as being at greater risk of violent acts of reprisal.

I would further ask that you take into consideration the greater moral imperative at stake
here. Although the U.S. did not codify it into law and thereby is not constrained by it from a
purely legal standpoint, Article 3 of the CAT does prohibit the rendition of an individual to a
third party country even when there is a basis to believe that individual will be subjected to
torture as defined by the CAT. It is certainly within States discretionary authority to adhere to
the spirit of that provision even if not bound to do so by law and conduct an investigation
into the circumstances in which the alleged extraordinary rendition of Abu Omar allegedly took
place in order to determine what role (if any) U.S. officials allegedly played in effectuating the
alleged rendition. The investigation would not necessarily be designed to rectify any alleged
harm incurred by Abu Omar but rather to provide a means by which to clear the name of officials
like Ms. De Sousa as well as his former colleagues who have unwittingly been caught up in
the international fallout through no fault of their own for something (at least in the case of Ms.
De Sousa) with which she was not involved. Ms. De Sousa would of course, and as she has
always indicated, be willing to cooperate with any such inquiry.

Madam Secretary, in light of your own well-documented history of working to advance the
cause of human rights across the globe, I respectfully request that you authorize an inquiry into
this matter at your earliest convenience. Indeed, I would humbly refer you to the following
comments made by U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell, who presided over our litigation on
behalf of Ms. De Sousa, in her January 5, 2012, ruling:

2
 The message that this scenario sends to civilian government employees serving this
country on tours of duty abroad is a potentially demoralizing one.

If this issue remains ignored, State is exposing our diplomats to overzealous and politicized
prosecutions in foreign courts for actions that (if true) were properly authorized by the U.S.
Government. At a time when this country continues to mourn the loss of Ambassador Chris
Stevens, I would hope you would agree with me that exposing our diplomats to further risks is
something that should be avoided at all costs.

I remain available to discuss this matter with your office at your (or your appropriate
designees) earliest convenience.

Highest regards,

Bradley P. Moss

CC: Sabrina De Sousa