VARIOUS: Somali officials urged Sweden on Tuesday to free a Somali police chief arrested on suspicion of war crimes

Record ID: 570887

  • Title: VARIOUS: Somali officials urged Sweden on Tuesday to free a Somali police chief arrested on suspicion of war crimes
  • Date: 20th October 2005
  • Summary: (BN15) STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN (OCTOBER 18, 2005) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) MINISTER OF STATE FOR PARLIAMENT AND GOVERNMENT RELATIONS, ABDURAHMAN ADAN IBRAHIM SAYING: "We kindly request the Swedish government the release of our colleague Abdi Awale Qaybdiid and we would also like to ask the Somali people in general to forgive and reconcile among them selves and forget th
  • Embargoed: 4th November 2005 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVAAFXWFA4GL232F1CC5M94ACDKP
  • Story Text: Somali officials urged Sweden on Tuesday (October 18,2005) to free a Somali police chief arrested on suspicion of war crimes while attending an aid conference, saying justice would have to wait in a country where "nobody is innocent".
    "The Somali people killed each other from government to government, clan to clan, sub-clan to sub-clan, family to family and nobody is actually innocent," said Minister of State for Parliament and Government Relations Abdurahman Adan Ibrahim.
    The minister and other Somali delegates held a news conference to call for the immediate release of Abdi Awale Qaybdiid, police chief in the interim government who has been associated with warlords.
    Qaybdiid, 57, served in the police under dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, who was ousted in 1991. Qaybdiid went on to work for warlords including Mohammed Farah Aideed, whose 1993 clash with U.S. troops was made into the film "Black Hawk Down".
    He was detained on Sunday after Somali exiles in Sweden handed police a video tape allegedly showing him committing war crimes. He is being held in Gothenburg pending an investigation.
    The video, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, shows the interrogation and execution of two men. Qaybdiid talks to the camera but it is not clear if he took part in the killings.
    The Somali delegation was headed by parliamentary speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan, leader of a Mogadishu-based faction of an interim government formed in neighbouring Kenya in 2004 which relocated home this year.
    They attended a conference on "Good Governance and Rule of Law" in the Horn of Africa in the Swedish university town of Lund. Sweden played an active role in the Somali peace process.
    A former colleague of Qaybdiid, who asked not to be named, said he has also been accused in the past of ordering a mortar attack on a Mogadishu market in 1996 that killed 10 people.
    The Somalia speaker expressed full confidence in Swedish justice, but said the warring factions had decided in Kenya to form a broad government with "full forgiveness" and that arresting Qaybdiid could "trigger division".
    Speaking with the minister as his interpreter, Hassan said settling accusations of human rights crimes should wait until Somalia was "standing on its own feet".
    A Somali legislator said the arrest was inspired by supporters of an opposing government faction. The legislator said Hassan's delegation was troubled on a recent U.S. trip where some people called police to denounce them as "terrorists".
    A court-appointed Swedish defence attorney said on Monday his client denied the accusations.
    Some human rights groups estimate 500,000 Somalis have been killed since Barre's departure plunged the nation of 10 million people into anarchy. The United States and United Nations intervened in 1992-1993 but withdrew by early 1995.
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