Amir Meshal, an American citizen, claims the FBI falsely imprisoned and tortured him for months, but on Friday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said he can’t sue the FBI because it happened in Ethiopia, not the United States.
Meshal was captured in January 2007 fleeing the war in Somalia, and was held in Ethiopia “under a program of secret prisoner renditions backed by the United States, Kenya and Somalia,” according to a 2007 story in McClatchy DC. He was released in May of that year without being charged.
In 2009, the ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of Meshal against four FBI agents for their “direct, personal role in his unlawful detention, torture, and rendition from Kenya to Somalia and Ethiopia over a period of more than four months.”
Meshal’s complaint for damages said the FBI agents “tortured Mr. Meshal by threatening him with forced disappearance and the infliction of severe physical and mental pain and suffering in the course of interrogations that took place when Mr. Meshal was detained in Kenya in order
to coerce him into confessing to things that he had not done and to associations with al
Qaeda and individuals connected to al Qaeda that he did not have. The TVPA [Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991] prohibits U.S. officials from torturing a U.S. citizen during interrogations that are carried out under the actual or apparent authority of a foreign government, through a conspiracy between U.S. officials and foreign officials, and/or through the willful participation of U.S. officials in joint activity with foreign officials.