A lawsuit filed last year says the former colonel and Columbus resident, Abdi Aden Magan, oversaw the detention and torture of a human rights advocate in Somalia in 1988.
Magan is a former official of a country with no government currently recognized by the United States, and a resident of the U.S. since 2000, Harold Hongju Koh, Legal Adviser for the State Department, said in the letter filed in U.S. District Court in Columbus.
Koh said that, “taking into account the relevant principles of customary international law, and considering the overall impact of this matter on the foreign policy of the United States, the Department of State has determined that Defendant Magan does not enjoy immunity from the jurisdiction of U.S. courts.”
Magan, arguing in court filings last year against immunity, said the lawsuit was filed in the wrong country and too long after the alleged abuse.
Magan also said he faced his own ordeal in Somalia and had to flee after falling out of favor with the government. His attorney did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
Abukar Hassan Ahmed sued Magan in April 2010, saying the three months of torture he endured make it painful for him to sit and injured his bladder to the point that he is incontinent.
Ahmed says the torture occurred when Magan served as investigations chief of the National Security Service of Somalia, a force dubbed the “Gestapo of Somalia.”
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