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| Africa: Horn | ||
| Somali police chief arrested in Sweden on suspicion of war crimes | ||
| 2005-10-18 | ||
| STOCKHOLM, Sweden - A Somali police chief and former militia commander was arrested Monday on suspicions of war crimes after attending a conference in Sweden, police and organizers said. Abdi Hassan Awale, was arrested after Somalis in the Nordic country recognized him and reported him to police, said Gillian Nilsson, an organizer of the conference. Awale, also known as Abdi Qeybdiid, was the commander of warlord Farah Aidid's troops that fought American peacekeepers in Mogadishu in the early 1990s. One of those confrontations in 1993 was featured in the book and movie "Black Hawk Down," and left 18 U.S. soldiers and hundreds of Somalis dead. Police spokesman Karl Sandberg would not confirm the suspect's identity, but said he was arrested early Monday at a hotel in Lund and was brought to the west coast city of Goteborg to be questioned by prosecutors. Sandberg said the 57-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of genocide, although police did not specify what crimes he had allegedly committed. Police in Goteborg questioned him Monday, his lawyer, Pieter Kjessler said. "He claims that the accusations are false," Kjessler told Swedish public radio.
U.S. troops launched an attack on Awale's home on July 12, 1993, from which he escaped unharmed - though 54 other people were killed. He later joined the militia led by warlord Osman Ali Ato. The interior minister in Somalia's divided government appointed him as the national police chief, but the prime minister named another person to the same position. Nilsson said Awale was part of a six-member Somali delegation headed by Parliamentary speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden that attended the conference on development in the Horn of Africa. Police spokesman Mats Glansberg said prosecutors have until Thursday to decide whether to ask a court to keep the man detained. He said it was unclear whether a foreign citizen suspected of genocide can stand trial in a Swedish court, or whether he would be extradited to an international tribunal. "It is very complicated," Glansberg said. "We have to clarify this legal situation. It may be more complicated than investigating the actual charges." The news of Awale's arrest was welcomed by some Somalis living abroad. "We were joyous to hear this," said Omar Jamal, of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in St. Paul, Minn. "It sends a loud and clear message to all the other Somali war criminals." | ||
| Posted by:DanNY |
| #3 was this like when Homer Simpson thought he'd won a speed boat but really wigam and co had set up a sting operation to lure him and others in. ' Congratulations Abdi you've just won a brand new speedboat , come to Sweden to collect it' Muhahaha |
| Posted by: Shep UK 2005-10-18 08:57 |
| #2 Yes, but first he will spend how many years in the ICC courtroom being tried? That itself is punishment for the kind of free spirit accustomed to domininating his environment by extreme violence. Inadequate, I agree, but not exactly unencumbered release to the outside world, to go merrily skipping through the meadows picking daisies. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-10-18 04:55 |
| #1 Yea extradite him to the ICC so they can give him 5 years for genocide. It's a bad joke. He will walk. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet O´ Doom 2005-10-18 02:49 |