State Rests in GI Murder Trial

By Steve White, Grand Island Bureau Chief - bio | email

Refugees escaping civil war half a world from here face off in a Grand Island courtroom, where a Sudanese man stands trial for the death of a Somali man.

Arkanjelo Kot was shot in the foot and his cousin was murdered in 2009 by Somali gang members.

A year later, Kot was the one prosecutors say fired a deadly shot. And Thursday, they rested their case.

Kot, 35, is on trial for premeditated murder. He's accused of killing a Somali man he argued with outside a Grand Island convenience store two years ago.

Walid Omar Aden was sitting in a van when a shot pierced his hip and tore through his internal organs. The injuries caused massive internal bleeding, according to doctors who testified.

The state wrapped its case Thursday with a ballistics expert from the state crime lab. Hall County Attorney Mark Young then called police to the stand, as "clean-up" witnesses.

The trial has progressed more quickly than expected, with just two and a half days of testimony by the state when they had anticipated the trial would last up to ten days.

The defense was not prepared to call witnesses, so their testimony will begin Friday.

Defense Attorney Clarence Mock is trying to make the case that his client acted in self–defense.

Mock said it's because Kot testified in another murder case that he feared he was going to be killed.

Two men were convicted in the earlier murder. Mock said Kot thought he had been targeted for "snitching" on the men from the earlier shooting.

Source: Nebraska TV

No Immunity for Somali Leader Who Tortured

By LORRAINE BAILEY

There is no possibility of immunity for the former Somali prime minister who conceded liability over the mass killing and torture of his people, the 4th Circuit ruled.

     Mohamed Ali Samantar, who now lives in Fairfax, Va., served as defense minister and prime minister after a military coup overthrew Somalia's elected government in 1969. He was the top military leader in Somalia until Major General Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted in 1991.

     In a federal complaint, four native Somalis accused Samantar of supervising the military that tortured, killed or imprisoned them or their relatives in the 1980s.

     In a motion to dismiss, Samantar claimed the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act shielded him from liability. But the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in 2010 that the act applied only to foreign states, not to individual foreign officials.

     Samantar then moved to dismiss on the basis of common-law immunity, but a federal judge in Alexandria denied this maneuver and proceeded with a trial while Samantar's appeal was still pending.

     In February 2012, Samantar personally appeared in court and conceded liability. The court ordered him in August to pay the plaintiff victims $21 million.

     On Friday, the 4th Circuit rejected Samantar's attempt at claiming common-law immunity, finding that acts such as torture, genocide, executions and arbitrary imprisonment violate a jus cogens, or norm of international law.

     "Unlike private acts that do not come within the scope of foreign official immunity, jus cogens violations may well be committed under color of law and, in that sense, constitute acts performed in the course of the foreign official's employment by the sovereign," Chief Judge William Traxler wrote for the three-judge panel. "However, as a matter of international and domestic law, jus cogens violations are, by definition, acts that are not officially authorized by the sovereign."

     The decision notes that British courts denied immunity to Augusto Pinochet, the former head of Chile accused of directing widespread torture.

     "We conclude that, under international and domestic law, officials from other countries are not entitled to foreign official immunity for jus cogens violations, even if the acts were performed in the defendant's official capacity," Traxler wrote.

     The court insisted that the State Department's opinion on the matter did not decide the matter for the court.

     "We give absolute deference to the State Department's position on status-based immunity doctrines such as head-of-state immunity," Traxler wrote. "The State Department's determination regarding conduct-based immunity, by contrast, is not controlling, but it carries substantial weight in our analysis of the issue."

Source: Courthouse News Service

Somalis fare better in the US than in Sweden

A new report has revealed that Somali immigrants generally have more success with employment in the United States and Canada than in Sweden.

The news comes via the Swedish government’s Commission on the Future, whose report ‘Somalis in the labour market – does Sweden have something to learn?’, revealed that only one in five Somalis living in Sweden has a job.

Meanwhile, those immigrating into the US and Canada tend to find employment much more easily, according to the report’s author, who attributes the difference to the way the immigrants are helped to find jobs.

Benny Carlsson, who wrote the paper, notes that in North America, Somalis are given assistance by non-government organisations, whereas the government provides this service in Sweden. He said that this poses a problem because the immigrants have had bad experiences with governments.

He writes: “In Sweden, government agencies try to integrate individuals. This is problematic, not least when it comes to Somalis, who are often unfamiliar with or have had negative experience with government agencies.”

He adds, “Would Swedish government bodies dare hand over some of the responsibility and resources to ethnic-based organisations focused on helping new arrivals or those suffering from social exclusion to navigate Swedish society?,” The Local reports.

Somalis are currently the single largest group immigrating to Sweden; some 40,000 are now living in the Nordic country, and recent figures from the Migration Board suggest that another 20,000 will arrive in 2013

Source: Icenews

Zawahri urges Somali militants to fight on against "crusaders"

Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri, in a statement on an Islamist website, urged Somalia's al Shabaab insurgents to fight back against what he called "crusader invaders" after Kenyan forces forced them out of their last urban bastion.

Somalia unveiled a new cabinet this week as it tries in a U.N.-backed initiative to restore central government control after 20 years of armed anarchy that has killed tens of thousands of people.

Backed by African Union (AU) peacekeepers, government forces have pushed the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab insurgents out of the main urban areas they took over in their five-year-old revolt, spurring many Somalis to return to rebuild their country. But the capital Mogadishu remains vulnerable to militant attacks.

Zawahri singled out Kenyan forces that in September drove al Shabaab out of its last stronghold, the port of Kismayu, telling the militants not be worried by the large number of what he said was U.S.-backed African troops in Somalia.

"Show them the fire of jihad (Islamic holy struggle) and its heat. Chase them with guerrilla warfare, ambushes, martyrdom (suicide attacks)," Zawahri said in the video posted on Tuesday on a website used by Islamists.

He said AU forces were bound to be defeated just as U.S. forces had been forced to leave Iraq and Afghanistan and their missions in Libya, Yemen and Egypt had been attacked in a wave of anti-American violence across the Arab world in September.

"With God's grace, these people are to be defeated. They have been defeated in Iraq, they are withdrawing from Afghanistan, their ambassador was killed in Benghazi and their flags lowered in Cairo and Sanaa," he added. He was referring to demonstrators who attacked U.S. missions over an anti-Islam film produced in the United States.

It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the recordings. But Zawahri, who took over after al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden was found and killed by U.S. special forces last year, has regularly spoken on various countries in audio or video recordings posted on Islamist websites.

Zawahri also urged Somalis to back al Shabaab against Kenyan troops that entered Kismayu in south Somalia in September.

Al Shabaab still hold sway over sweeping rural areas of the Horn of Africa country where the Mogadishu government and regional administrations have minimal control.

Somalia inaugurated a new president in September, elected in the first vote of its kind since warlords toppled military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, leaving the African nation without an effective central government.

(Reporting by Ahmed Tolba; Writing by Sami Aboudi; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: Reuters

Ethiopia abusing religious freedom of Muslims: U.S. body

A U.S. panel on religious freedom accused the Ethiopian government of trying to tighten control of its Muslim minority amid mass protests, saying it is risking greater destabilization of the Horn of Africa region.

Ethiopia, which has long been seen by the West as a bulwark against Muslim rebels in neighboring Somalia, says it fears militant Islam is taking root in the country.

However, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) accused the government of arresting peaceful Muslim protesters, noting that 29 of them had been charged last month with what the authorities said was "planning to commit terrorist acts".

Ethiopian Muslims, who make up about a third of the population in the majority Christian country, accuse the government of interfering in the highest Muslim affairs body, the Ethiopia Islamic Affairs Supreme Council (EIASC). Thousands of Muslims have staged weekly mosque sit-ins and street protests in Addis Ababa over the past year.

"The arrests, terrorism charges and takeover of EIASC signify a troubling escalation in the government's attempts to control Ethiopia's Muslim community and provide further evidence of a decline in religious freedom in Ethiopia," the Commission said in a statement issued on Thursday.

Ethiopian officials were unavailable for comment on the statement from the Commission, whose members are appointed by President Barack Obama and senior Congressional Democrats and Republicans.

Commission Chairwoman Katrina Lantos Swett called on the U.S. government to raise the issue with Addis Ababa.

"USCIRF has found that repressing religious communities in the name of countering extremism leads to more extremism, greater instability, and possibly violence," she said.

"Given Ethiopia's strategic importance in the Horn of Africa ... it is vital that the Ethiopian government end its religious freedom abuses and allow Muslims to practice peacefully their faith as they see fit," she added.

"Otherwise the government's current policies and practices will lead to greater destabilization of an already volatile region."

Over the past six years Ethiopia has twice sent troops into Somalia to battle Islamist rebels, including al Shaabab militants, and officials say some of the protesters are bankrolled by Islamist groups in the Middle East.

The Commission backed the protesters' complaints that the government had been trying since last year to impose the apolitical Al Ahbash sect on Ethiopian Muslims. The government has denied this but dozens of Muslims have been arrested since the demonstrations started in 2011.

Ethiopia is 63 percent Christian and 34 percent Muslim, according to official figures, with the vast majority of Muslims adhering to the moderate, Sufi version of Islam.

(Editing by Drazen Jorgic and David Stamp)

Source: Reuters

Somalia forms new government with woman foreign minister

Somali Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon Said on Sunday announced the members of his new government, noting that a woman has been named as foreign minister for the first time in the country's history.

SomaliCare Blog sources indicate that the Prime Minister of Somalia Abdi Farah Shirdon (aka Saa’id) nominated his new Cabinet with 10 ministers:

1-Fowsio Yusuf Haji Adan, Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister

2- Abdullahi Abyan Nur, Justice and Religion affairs Minister

3- Abdihakin Haji Mohamud Fiqi, Defence Minister

4- Abdikarin Husein Guled, Interior and National Security Minister

5- Mohamud Hassan Suleyman, Finance and Planning Minister

6- Abdullahi Ilmoge Hersi, Information, Post and Telecommunication Minister

7- Abdirisaq Omar Mohamed, National Resources Minister

8- Muhyaddin Mohamed Kalmoy, Public Works and Reconstruction Minister

9- Maryan Qasim, Social Services and Developments Minister

10- Mohamud Ahmed Hassan, Trade and Industry Minister

This report is a combination sources from AFP and SomaliCare Blog

Twin explosions kill three in Somalia capital

Two suicide bombers killed three people outside a restaurant in the Somali capital on Saturday, residents said, underlining the serious security challenges the Horn of Africa nation faces.

A Reuters witness said he saw the bombers' two bodies and that of a guard.

"Two suicide bombers opened fire at guards at the gate and as soon as they entered two successive blasts took place," Mogadishu resident Farah Hussein told Reuters on Saturday.

"I cannot go in but I see three dead people in front of the gate. The guards fought the bombers and denied them access. The bombers blew themselves up at the gate."

Source: Reuters