PART I
HOW IT WAS CARRIED OUT

By Samanter H. Salah

FIRST DAY

In the morning of September 26 th, 2007, when the news was heard that the Residence of Dr. Yusuf Ali Haruun, the Somali President of the Supreme Court, in Baidoa had been raided and ransacked by unknown armed men and that he and another Court Judge were abducted, most people thought that this was nothing more than that the same baseless lie that had been circulated before.

As the news, however, continued to persist, people began to try to guess which one of the terrible warlords was capable of such distasteful action and what kind of ransom would be sought from the Government, It had never occurred to most of the people that the Transitional Federal Government was responsible for such a distasteful action.

In the afternoon of that day, local radios and the BBC news removed all doubts about the authenticity of the incident. It became clear that the raid was not only true but was undertaken by six truckloads of various Government forces including the Police and the N.S.S. Various references from the incident stated that the Attorney-General, Mr. Abdillahi Sheikh Dahir Bare had confirmed that the arrests of the Chief Justice Haruun and another member of The Supreme Court were ordered by higher authority within the transitional Government. They were charged on eight counts of criminal activities were flagrantly i.e. while in the process of committing them.

It was also reported that the Prime Minister had called for an emergency session of the Council of Ministers to be convened in the following day in Mogadishu.

Second Day

Several new developments occurred on the Second day 27 th of September. Among these were:

1 . The Council of Ministers Meeting

As the meeting was underway, the Prime Minister and several Ministers found themselves powerless to deal with the matter at hand. The conflict between the President of the Supreme Court and the Attorney-General was as old as the TFG itself and the Council had discussed that matter before but had taken no action towards reconciliation.

It was also a known fact that that the present Minister of Justice- Mr. Hassan Dhimbil, had got entangled with the conflict soon after he was appointed to the Ministry early this year, joining forces with the Attorney-General against the President of the High Court.

In the past the power struggle between the President of the Republic, Abdillahi Yusuf and the Prime Minister Gedi, had dwarfed the above-mentioned conflict and now it looks as though the two have been hammered into one . Since none of the Ministers had the power to order any police man to arrest a person, it was assured that the President of TFG was the one responsible for this turn of events.

When the Minister of justice, Mr Dhimbil, was asked in the Parliament, who was responsible for this operation; he replied that the Attorney General had a signed warrant to arrest the President of the Supreme Court and one other judge. When asked whether the Judiciary Service Committee had authorized the arrest of the two Supreme Court judges, the Minister replied that no such discussions or authorization had taken place before the morning of the arrest, when six members of the judiciary council were cowed into signing this authorization. He produced a fax which showed same day dispatch from Baidoa @ 11 hours.

When further queries were made by the Ministers, he stated that no financial officers such as magistrate of accounts had ever been able to look at or check the finance of the Judiciary.

Then the Ministers voted by an overwhelming majority that the President of the Supreme Court and the Judge have been illegally arrested and detained and therefore be immediately be re-instated and amends should be made for their mistreatment.

The council of Ministers also passed a similar resolution in which they requested the Prime Minister to affect the dismissal of the Attorney-General and his Assistant Ali Yareh who were responsible for the creation of this mess. Indeed some of the Ministers went as far as to recommend their imprisonment.

2. Collusion

Immediately after the meeting of the council of ministers, the PM sent some of his bodyguards to inform the Criminal Investigation Department H/Qrs of the decision of the council of ministers.

The PM was not aware that some Presidential and NSS Guards were surrounding the whole area of the CID and an armed confrontation involving the two tribal armies almost occurred with grave consequence, had it not been for the intervention of the Ugandan African force. The fat was almost on fire.

3. The press conference

The Attorney General Abdillahi Dahir made at last his promised press conference on the case.

The attorney General stated that he was the one who had signed the warrant for the arrest of Dr. Yusuf Ali Haruun and the other Judge charged with eight different criminal offences including financial embezzlement and treason.

He depicted boundless arrogance and conceit and tried to convince the audiences that he was above everybody accept the President of the Republic. He described the PM and the Council of Ministers as an ignorant people. When requested to qualify this term “ignorant”, he corrected himself by saying that they were ignorant about the laws of the country.

Attorney General also stated that the so called Council of Ministers that had met that morning, were composed of a rag tag collection of prostitutes, pseudo ministers, and some assistant ministers who were kept by the Prime Minister in his house. Neither the PM nor the Council of Ministers could dismiss him. Only the TFG President of the Republic could do so.

This was followed by similar statements made by him to various local radio stations and the BBC Somali section. .He seemed to be thirsty for publicity and tried to bask in the lime light and direct his vengeances on those that had belittled him and his position for so long.

His statements had cleared many things that were previously vague. The excessive confidence made it obvious that the NSS and the Police were involved at the highest levels. Attorney General’s rude comments and reckless statements had removed all doubts which people might have entertained about the involvement of President Abdullah Yusuf in this affair.

Other News Flashes

Part II.

The Background of the Conflict

In any conflict, the character and the background of the protagonists determine the shape which the conflict takes and whether it would be difficult or easy to find a proper remedy for it.

One can hardly find two people whose every views, outlook and attitude of every aspect of life are diametrically oppose to each other as the case is with Yusuf Ali Harun and Abdillahi Dahir Barre. Harun is an intellectual with high moral Fiber, while the other would stop at nothing to achieve what he wanted.

Yusuf Ali Haruun’s background.

He was borne in Qabry Dahare in Ethiopian Somali Area, although he is from the Issak Tribe of Somaliland. His family later moved to Beletweyn in Hiran Region, and in Mogadishu where his to School and his family eventually settled.

He then went to various countries including the USSR, France, Britain and the USA for further education and came to Mogadishu to open a law firm. Dr. Haruun is multi-lingual and fluently speaks English, French, Italian, Russian, Arabic, Kiswahili and Somali.

Dr. Haruun obtained his first degree from the Mogadishu University Institute in Law, and later a Master of law degree from Emory University in Atlanta USA

In 1965 to 1972, he had a law practice in Mogadishu until he had got into trouble with Siyad Barre’s Military Regime when he defended General Mohamed Ainanshe Gulled in the infamous so- called Treason Trials in Mogadishu. He had to leave the country and eventually settled in Dar-e-Salaam. where he opened a thriving law firm defending cases at Tanzanian Supreme and other Courts.

He was one of thirteen Founders of the First Somali Front known as SODAF in Jan. 1977. When later Abdillahi Yusuf and his Majertain tribe usurped the Front, Haruun joined the Somali National Movement and it was he who prepared its constitution.

Who is Abdullah Dahir Barre ?

The other character of the conflict is said to have studied in Qoranic schools and to have joined the judiciary as a Qadi- Religious Court, which dealt with family law relating to marriage, divorce etc

During the Siyad Bare’s dictatorship he found to his advantage to become enthusiasm supporter of the regime. Thus, he became a vivid “GOOLWADE” who would report on even his closest friends and relatives.

It was hardly surprising that he had received several promotions in secession. As time passed, even a regime as authoritarian as Siyad’s was, could not hide his continual involvement in one rape after another wherever he was transferred to Burao, Beletweyn etc. He was finally transferred to a diplomatic service and was given a junior post in the Somali Embassy in Qatar where it was thought that his Qoranic Arabic might be of some use. In Qatar he married a woman from the Issak tribe. But the marriage tragically ended within few months and almost damaged the community’s good name.

The fact his tenure in the service lasted for a short time speaks for itself.

How Present Conflict Came About

The two men had never met before President Abdillahi had selected them for the two posts. Immediately the two protagonists met in Jowhar in 2005, it was obvious to those around them that those two men would never be able to work together.

There was an incident when Abdillahi Dahir arbitrarily imprisoned a young man called Adeac – a slightly accelerated and hyperactive Ogaaden, who had made it his job to keep the keys the small office that it had been assigned to Dr. Haruun.

Abdillahi Dahir was, on the other hand, of the impression that the room should have been allocated to him and not Haruun. Adeac had to know who was who.

When came to know that Haruun had released Mr. Adeac from the station, the AG was furious.

Misconception of Duties

The funny thing was that Abdullahi Dahir believed that he as the AG , was the head of the Judiciary and that the Supreme Court President was usurping the authority of the post. Two things seemed to have solidified his illogical convictions:

First- is the translation of the term Attorney General as Xeer Ilaaliye i.e. Custodian of the Law. AG is hardly that.

Secondly- the same phrase appears in an Article in the National Charter which denotes to the appointment of the AG seems to have misdirected him. Every body knows that the main job of an AG is to prosecute criminal and constitutional cases in the Courts of Law. The Judges and not the AG are the ones that determine and interpret the laws.

Were these misapprehension due to his limited knowledge or were these the manifestation of a diseased brain. There is no doubt it was due to both.

Mad behavior

About seven months after, when the Government had relocated to Baidoba, the misunderstanding between the two men took a nasty and unsolvable turn.

During the inauguration ceremony to open the Judiciary, the AG openly disrupted the process of swearing the Judicial Service Committee by shouting like mad man.

President Abdullahi Yusuf tried to call him to order at first but when he found out that his words were not enough to restrain him and he instructed the guards to throw him out by force, as AG persist in his mad outbursts. It was later discovered that his main objection related to the appointment of the four lawyers from recruited outside the Government, and in particular the lady who happened to be the sister of relative with whom he had quarreled.

The Murder of Issak Derow.

After the murder of this famous Minister last year, several people had been arrested by the Baidoa Police.

Then it became known that in a Baidoa Regional Court which held a session in camera and all the suspects except one were released as demanded by an Assistant AG- Ali Yare. This was described as fishy and Indeed, in the preceding weeks Baidoa was awash with rumors that this had resulted from a long Qat sessions in Khaleej Hotel between the AG and his Assistant, Ali Yare, on one hand and the tribal leaders of five of the suspects. Corruptive practices could hardly be excluded.

Then a Judge of the Appeals Court in Bay issued an injunction to re-arrest the suspect until a proper court heard the case. The suspects had already crossed to Mogadishu which was under the jurisdiction of the ICU at that time. But when the ICU were defeated, the tribal leaders who had arranged the release became fearful lest their relatives could be re-arrested. So they tried to pressure the Supreme Court to annul the writ of the Court of Appeal.

Dr. Yusuf Ali Haruun was at that time in the US. When returned he consulted the JSC and suspended the Regional Judge and the Assistant AG until the JST completed its investigation of how the release had been affected, Abdillahi Dahir was annoyed. He knew he would be implicated.

One wanders why the President Abdillahi Yusuf got involved in this case. Was he also involved in the Murder of Abdullah Derow Issak? Or was the President so short sighted as not to see what his AG was up to?

CONCLUSION:

When Abdillahi was selected in Nairobi to head the TFG , Somalis hoped that at last a Government was being established which would wipe out the endless tragedies the country had been through during the infamous regime of Siyad Barre the 15 lawless years that followed.

The Somali people had never entertained that the situation would be made worse by Abdillahi Yusuf and the TFG. If we chronicle the multi-phased civil wars Somalia had been through in the last three years, we would see that we are worse off than we had been:

Yet as though these were not sufficient, the President and the PM are now involving the country in another armed confrontation. The power struggle is assuming dangerous proportions. They are already behaving like two super war-lords. It looks also as though this power struggle had given the President in particular new licenses to disregard and at his will break the laws of the country and do what he likes as the present case indicates.

GOD HELP SOMALIA.

Samanter H. Salah

The Conveyer