Judge Rules against Former Ohio Resident in Somalia Torture Case

Columbus, June 5, 2013 (SDN) —Torture victim Abukar Hassan Ahmed was living in London when he decided several years ago to search again for the man he says crippled him during interrogations in Somalia in the 1980s. It took just a half-hour Internet search in 2005 to locate the former government official then living in Ohio. Ahmed finally got the chance to tell his story in court last week after a federal judge ruled in his favor in a lawsuit against the official, Abdi Aden Magan. “Justice is universal,” Ahmed told The Associated Press after the hearing. Those “who try to torture a human being will be brought to justice anywhere he is. That is my message.” Ahmed, a former human rights advocate in Somalia, alleged in a 2010 lawsuit that the beatings he endured at Magan’s direction make it painful for him to sit and injured his bladder to the point that he is incontinent. He is seeking more than $12 million in damages, though he’s unlikely to ever see the money. Magan is believed to be living in Kenya, where even if he had the funds, he would be out of reach of U.S. courts. Ahmed says the torture occurred when Magan served as investigations chief of the National Security Service of Somalia, a force dubbed the “Black SS” or the “Gestapo of Somalia” because of techniques used to gain confessions from detainees. Magan, who lived for several years in Columbus, didn’t present any evidence to dispute the allegations that he directed subordinates in carrying out human rights abuses under the regime of former dictator Siad Barre, federal judge George Smith ruled in November.

Source: AP