Portugal is to extradite to Italy, Sabrina de Sousa, a former US spy convicted of conspiring to abduct the Egyptian cleric Abu Omar in 2003.
De Sousa, a Portuguese-American dual national is a former CIA agent, said last week that the extradition process was due to start "after January 3rd."
She further noted that the decision to proceed with her extradition had been expected, adding, "I will have to explore options, if any are available to me.”
De Sousa, who was born in India, was arrested at Lisbon Airport in October 2015 on a European Arrest Warrant while on her way to visit her family in the South Asian country.
Back in 2009, an Italian court convicted her in absentia over the kidnapping of the Egyptian cleric Abu Omar in Milan in 2003 when she was working in Italy under diplomatic cover.
De Sousa said she served as an interpreter for the CIA team and denied any direct involvement in Omar’s kidnapping.
Asked if she felt betrayed by Washington, she said, "Betrayal was a sentiment I felt many years ago."
Omar's abduction operation was allegedly led jointly by the CIA and the Italian intelligence services. Omar was flown to the Egyptian capital, Cairo, via the US Ramstein Air Base in Germany and allegedly was imprisoned, interrogated and tortured.
He was abducted as part of the CIA's contentious extraordinary rendition process, a practice of transferring presumed terror suspects to countries where torture is allowed. The practice has been condemned by human rights groups as being in violation of international agreements.
