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Washington, November 14, 2009 — A US citizen who alleges he was
illegally detained and interrogated in Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia has
filed a lawsuit seeking compensation from the FBI agents he says were
responsible for his ordeal.
In legal documents obtained by AFP on Wednesday, Amir Meshal says he was
held "in stark and inhuman conditions without charge or legal basis" and
subjected to "intense interrogation" by US agents.
Meshal, a Muslim born and raised in the US state of New Jersey, was
first detained in January 2007 fleeing Somalia as part of a joint
US-Kenyan-Ethiopian operation on the Kenya-Somalia border.
He alleges that federal agents declined to return him the United States
"because he did not admit an involvement with al Qaeda."
"One US official indicated that Mr Meshal was not brought home because
there was insufficient evidence to charge and jail Mr Meshal in the
United States," the lawsuit said.
After being detained in Kenya, Meshal alleges he was then "renditioned"
to a detention facility in Somalia and then another in Ethiopia.
During the three months he was held in Ethiopia and Somalia he was
interrogated only by FBI agents, according to the suit.
Meshal claims he traveled to Mogadishu in 2006, when relative calm had
descended on the Somali capital, hoping to study Islam, but soon found
himself caught up in fighting that broke out at the beginning of 2007.
The lawsuit says FBI agents repeatedly interrogated him, accusing him of
being a member of Al Qaeda and threatening to transfer him to Israel,
where they said authorities could "make him disappear," or Egypt, where
they "have ways of making him talk."
Meshal also alleges he was threatened with "serious physical and mental
abuse."
After being transferred from Somalia to Ethiopia, Meshal spent three
months in detention, and appeared three times before a closed Ethiopian
military tribunal, before suddenly and without explanation being flown
back to the United States, where he was not charged with a crime.
Meshal claims his experience was part of the so-called extraordinary
rendition program set up the administration of former US president
George W. Bush to transfer terror suspects to countries where they could
be interrogated without US constitutional protections.
Since coming into office, President Barack Obama has banned use of the
program.
Source: AFP
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