McClatchy: "American's rendition may have broken laws"

Reporters for the McClatchy Newspaper chain are probing the arrest of an American citizen, Amir Mohamed Meshan (shown at left), by Kenyan authorities during the US-supported Ethiopian intervention in Somalia and his eventual deportation to Ethiopia and incarceration in Addis Abeba. Meshan was first mentioned in their report published yesterday and posted below. A second report, published today, supplies a photograph of Meshan supplied by his family, along with assurances by unnamed U.S. officials that Meshan was "in good health."

But the latter report also indicated that Meshal might be detained in Ethiopia as a prisoner of war, and it cited the opinion of "several [American] legal experts" that the U.S. may have violated U.S. law as well as international conventions banning torture and protecting refugees who escape to a neighboring country.

To read the entire report click on the headline at the beginning of the post. To read excerpts from today's McClatchy Newspaper report, click on "Read more!" below.

NAIROBI, Kenya - American diplomats on Wednesday paid their first visit to an American who was detained five weeks ago by Ethiopian authorities after a middle-of-the-night secret transfer from Kenya and said he was in good health.

But U.S. officials couldn't secure the release of Amir Mohamed Meshal, 24, of Tinton, Falls, N.J., who was arrested at the Somali-Kenyan border after the U.S.-backed Ethiopian army toppled the Islamist government in Somalia.

Instead, Meshal will appear at an Ethiopian hearing to determine whether he can be detained as a prisoner of war, said a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.

In Nairobi, U.S. Ambassador Michael Ranneberger praised the deportations of Meshal and some 80 other detainees who were arrested on the Kenyan-Somali border, saying Kenyan officials had complied with their own laws.

Kenyan officials have said the prisoners - including several Kenyans who were living in Somalia - entered Kenya illegally because the border was closed. They said national immigration laws allow for the detainees to be returned to the country they came from.

"The Kenyans have carried out security operations based on their own security interests," Ranneberger said at a news conference. "It's my understanding that the Kenyans have dealt with all of those people in a way consistent with Kenyan law." He refused to say whether Meshal, whose deportation the State Department said it had tried to block, was among those expelled.

But several U.S. legal experts said American officials who questioned Meshal while he was in Kenya may have violated U.S. law as well as international conventions that ban torture and protect refugees who escape to a neighboring country.

"It's a very serious concern," said Jonathan Hafetz of the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law. Hafetz is providing legal assistance to Meshal's family in New Jersey.

FBI agents who interviewed Meshal in Nairobi in early February believed he was a "jihadist" who'd trained in al-Qaida camps in Somalia, according to an internal U.S. government e-mail that was read to McClatchy Newspapers by officials at two different U.S. agencies.

But the agents didn't have enough evidence to charge him with a crime if he returned to the United States. They left him in the custody of Kenyan authorities, who secretly deported him to Somalia on Feb. 10.

He was then turned over to Ethiopian forces, which had launched a U.S.-backed offensive to crush the Council of Islamic Courts, a coalition of Somali militias that the Bush administration has accused of being an al-Qaida front.

Hafetz and other international legal experts said that the deportations of Meshal and other detainees to Somalia appear to have broken the Convention Against Torture. The FBI also may have violated Meshal's U.S. constitutional rights, they said.

The Convention Against Torture bars the deportation of people to countries where there are "substantial grounds" to believe they'd be in danger of being tortured or abused.

Ethiopia also has a bleak human rights record; the State Department and human rights organizations have accused the nation of abusing and torturing detainees.

Paul Williams, a former State Department lawyer, said the FBI may have violated Meshal's constitutional right to due process by returning him to Kenyan authorities after twice taking him out of prison and interrogating him at a hotel.

"You can make an argument that . . . he had the right to due process when he was in the physical custody of the FBI," said Williams, who heads the Public International Law and Policy Group, which provides free legal aid to developing nations involved in conflicts. "Your constitutional right to due process travels with you and your citizenship. The moment he was in FBI custody, he had ( U.S.) legal rights and the FBI acted illegally by passing him back to the Kenyans."

Richard Kolko, an FBI spokesman, denied that the FBI ever had custody of Meshal.

"Mr. Meshal was not in FBI custody when interviewed in Kenya, nor are there any outstanding U.S. charges against him," Kolko said. "As such, his situation is in the hands of the foreign government."

Tom Casey, a State Department spokesman, reiterated an earlier statement that Meshal's deportation took U.S. officials by surprise and was contrary to their request that he be released to return home. He said a formal protest was lodged with the Nairobi government.

Another American, Daniel Joseph Maldonado, also was arrested crossing into Kenya from Somalia, but the FBI said he had admitted to being trained at an al-Qaida camp in Somalia, and he was released to U.S. custody, flown back to Texas and accused under U.S. anti-terrorism laws.

Meshal told Kenyan human rights activists who interviewed him in custody and other detainees who since have been freed that the FBI agents threatened to send him back to Somalia if he didn't admit that he was associated with al-Qaida.

Edwin Williams, an attorney in New York who represented detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said that such a threat - if it was made - could be considered a form of torture.

Read more!

Transitional government moves to Mogadishu

A news broadcast from South Africa records the move of the Transitional Federal Government from its temporary quarters in Baidoa to Mogadishu, assisted by elements of the Ethiopian army.

News 24 (South Africa)
March 13, 2007

Mogadishu (Somalia) - Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf moved to violence-wracked Mogadishu on Tuesday, a day after parliament voted to relocate the government from Baidoa to the capital, an official said.

"The president's office will be fully operational in Mogadishu from today and all other ministers and government officials will follow suit," deputy defence minister Salad Ali Jelle said. "Every minister will set up his offices in the capital," he added.

The president immediately left the airport, the base of about 1,200 freshly-arrived African Union troops from Uganda, and the target of recent mortar attacks. "From what you see on the ground, Ethiopian and Somali troops are at every junction so the president can safely get to Villa Somalia (the presidential residence)," Jelle said. The Somali interim government on Monday overwhelmingly voted to relocate from the provincial town of Baidoa to Mogadishu, where insurgents have stepped up guerrilla-style attacks in recent weeks, killing dozens of civilians.

But the move is pegged on the government's ability to restore stability there. The government on Sunday announced a massive security drive to pacify Mogadishu within a month using its newly trained forces as well as Ethiopian and [African Union] troops. "Thanks to the improved security in Mogadishu that will allow the government to operate from here," Jelle said. So far, attacks have continued, with Mogadishu residents on Monday reporting at least one dead and five injured after a gun battle sparked by an insurgent attack on Ethiopian forces.

The incident was the latest in a string of attacks since January when joint Ethiopian-Somali forces ousted a powerful Islamist movement from the country's southern and central regions. The six-month AU mission aims to deploy about 8,000 troops to enable Ethiopian forces to leave and Somali forces to take over security. It is the first international peacekeeping venture in Somalia since an ill-fated UN-backed, US-led peace mission launched in the early 1990s. Somalia has lacked an effective government since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. Read more!

Is This True? " Eleven US soldiers reported seized in Somalia fighting last month

I find the following news report astonishing but intriguing nonetheless:

According to Al-Khaleej news agency based in the Emirates quoting DPA news agency, Somalia’s routed Islamist leader Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed and the US ambassador to Kenya, Michael Ranneberger, are said to be bargaining over the release of 11 US servicemen reportedly captured by the defeated Islamists in southern Somalia.

The news agency asserts that "reliable diplomatic sources" indicate that the two men have held four rounds of talks over the American soldiers in the captivity of Islamists in southern jungles of the war-torn country, Somalia.

The remainder of the report may be read on the Shabelle Net News page by clicking here. I'm personally unaware of any Western media report that any such number of U.S. soldiers were taken prisoner during the brief US-supported invasion of Somalia by Ethiopian forces last month. Can anyone shed light from other sources on these claims? If so, kindly comment below.

Read more!

Ambassador promises U.S. will stay the course in Somalia

My good friend Bashir has drawn my attention to an extraordinarily straightforward interview with the U.S. ambassador to Kenya, Michael Ranneburger, carried recently by ShabelleNet from Mogadishu. According to the ambassador, U.S. policy toward Somalia consists of just three goals:

1. Help the Somali people establish security;
2. Help them establish stability, law, and order with peace; and,
3. Help them get the humanitarian assistance they need.

Asked whether the U.S. will be involved militarily in Somalia (to take up the slack after the after the Ethiopians leave), our ambassador solemnly promised that "the United States is going to be involved for [a] very long time. This is not something where we are going in very quickly and will then leave. We are coming in to stay."

Was the U.S. was encouraging dialogue between the transitional government and the Islamic Courts? Amb. Ranneburger pointed out that, "of course the Islamic Courts no longer exists as an institution, but . . . any Somali who renounces violence and extremism and terrorism should have a role to play in the future of their country, and this will include individual members of the Islamic Courts if they are moderate people who as I say renounces violence, extremism and terrorism."

Does the U.S. have evidence that terrorists involved in the Nairobi embassy bombings were present in Somalia? The ambassador is emphatic:

There is no question about it. The evidence is clear and it is absolutely certain. At least three of the individuals responsible for the bombing of the US embassies in Nairobi and Daressalam in 1998 were taking refuge within Somalia. Those three people were Fazul, Napal, and al-Sudani. There is no doubt whatsoever about that. There is also no doubt whatsoever that the Islamic Courts knew they were there and this is something that the Somali people need to know. These three people are individuals are associated with al-Qaeda.

But more importantly, there were a large number of foreign fighters and foreign jihadists and other people associated with al-Qaeda, who were there active in support of the Islamic Courts. I can tell you with great certainty that the influence of al-Qaeda people was growing within the Islamic Courts and posed a major threat to the people of Somalia.

You can read a transcript of most of the interview at the ShabelleNet website.
Better yet, listen to the audio of the entire interview here.

Bashir's own comments:

Please note that the ambassador mentions terrorism, terrorists etc. but since the fall of the Islamic Courts it is rather obvious the previous UN/US reports of presence of Eritrean troops 2000 strong, several hundred foreign fighters, Al qaeda etc. have turned out to be false. In fact the few "foreigners" so far arrested in Somalia were Canadian-Somalis and some Tabliq (Islamic version of Jehovah Witness or Mormon in their traveling preaching style) . . . .

Also the ambassador is asking the classic question, "Have you stopped beating your wife?" of Sheikh Sharif, the Islamic courts, and specifically the Ayr subclan in demanding that they first renounce violence, terrorism etc. before they can be allowed to participate in the politics of the country i.e. they have to first announce that they have engaged in unacceptable violence and terrorism and that they will now stop that. If defending one's country from the invasion of a foreign foe is considered radical and extremism I wonder how many founding fathers and heroic Presidents will join the ranks of extremists? Read more!