&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "‘Never thought they were going to betray me like this’: Ex-CIA informant who helped in intel on Osama bin Laden faces deportation")
A Kosovo-born former CIA informant who says he helped US authorities gather intelligence on Osama bin Laden and other terrorists is facing deportation after being arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Blerim Skoro, 55, was arrested earlier this month outside an immigration centre, according to court documents. His legal team has since sought to terminate deportation proceedings against him.
Skoro was reportedly recruited by the CIA just a day after the September 11, 2001 attacks while serving a prison sentence for drug trafficking. He later provided information to US authorities on several terror suspects, including bin Laden, according to The Times and CBS News.
In a 2024 interview with The Times, Skoro said he agreed to work with US intelligence because he considered himself a patriot and wanted to help the country. “I considered myself a patriot of America first and a Muslim second. I wanted to pay back this country,” he told the newspaper.
Also read: US Congress approves $70 billion for ICE, Border Patrol, backing Trump's deportation agenda
CBS News reported that Skoro at one point shared a prison cell with the man behind the Millennium Plot, which targeted Los Angeles International Airport. He also provided the FBI with information about Faysal Galab, who was linked to the so-called Lackawanna Six terror cell.
Skoro has said US authorities promised to keep him safe in exchange for his cooperation. However, CBS reported that he was deported to Kosovo in 2007 after completing his sentence, despite being married to an American woman.
Two days after his deportation, Skoro offered to work as an informant for the US again, according to The Times. He later lived inside an al-Qaeda training camp and said he met the leader of the Pakistani Taliban. Skoro eventually returned to the US illegally after his cover was exposed. He also said he was wounded in an assassination attempt in Kosovo, CBS reported. ICE apprehended him two years later.
Also read: US Federal court bars Trump administration from detaining migrants at immigration hearings
Skoro now says returning to Kosovo would put his life at risk
“I never thought they were going to betray me like this,” he told The Times in a phone interview from the Elizabeth Detention Centre in New Jersey. “Please, if I die, I should die in this country so my kids can bury me,” he added.
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His wife, Susan, has also criticised the US government's handling of his case. “They betrayed him,” she told CBS News, arguing that Skoro had already served his sentence and had nearly lost his life while assisting US authorities.
