Court grants appeal from former Somali PM (Sept. 30, 2009)

The Supreme Court has agreed to rule on whether a former Somali prime minister is immune from civil suit in the United States for alleged human rights abuses committed in Somalia.

Five Somalians, including several naturalized U.S. citizens, filed a lawsuit against Mohamed Ali Samantar, who served as the country's defense minister in the 1980s and then as prime minister from 1987 to 1990. They said they endured torture or other abuses in violation of international law by Somali soldiers or other government officials under Samantar's general command.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema dismissed the lawsuit in 2007, finding that Samantar, who now lives in Virginia, was entitled to immunity under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.

In January, a three-judge panel on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and remanded the case, thereby allowing the lawsuit to proceed.

The court held that FSIA extended immunity only to foreign states and their agencies, not to individuals.

"Because there is no explicit mention of individuals or natural persons, it is not readily apparent that Congress intended the FSIA to apply to individuals," the panel held.

Samantar's attorneys appealed to the Supreme Court and argued that the law extended to individuals for acts taken in their official capacity.

On Sept. 30, the justices agreed to hear the case. Oral arguments will be scheduled for early next year.

Question presented: Whether a foreign state’s immunity from suit under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), 28 U.S.C. § 1604, extends to an individual acting in his official capacity on behalf of a foreign state and whether an individual who is no longer an official of a foreign state at the time suit is filed retains immunity for acts taken in the individual’s former capacity as an official acting on behalf of a foreign state.