Press TV – June 2, 2013
An American Muslim man has sued the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the State Department over the claim that he was subjected to torture at their behest while being held abroad.
On Thursday, Yonas Fikre, a Sudanese man of Eritrean descent, filed a lawsuit in US District Court in Oregon seeking USD 30 million in compensation as well as injunctions to prevent the US government from treating anyone else the way he was treated.
The plaintiff says that the FBI took an interest in him in 2009, when he decided to move from Portland, Oregon, to Sudan in order to open an electronics retail business in the North African country.
In April 2010, Fikre was summoned to the US embassy in Khartoum by a man claiming to be an official requiring advice on “how Americans might stay safe during a period of political turmoil in Sudan.”
Upon arrival, he was ushered into a small room and interrogated by FBI agents David Noordeloos and Jason Dundas for information on worshippers at Portland’s largest mosque, Masjid al-Saber.
The agents sought to recruit Fikre as an informant at the mosque, and were angered when he refused.
Fikre left Sudan in June 2010 and arrived in the United Arab Emirates in September 2010, where he obtained a residency permit.
He was apprehended by Emirati police in June 2011, when they “invaded” his house in Abu Dhabi.
Fikre was then incarcerated for 106 days in solitary confinement in a windowless cell, and was beaten repeatedly during the period.
Named in Fikre’s suit are US Attorney General Eric Holder, Secretary of State John Kerry, FBI Director Robert Mueller, FBI Terrorism Screening Center Director Timothy Healy, and FBI agents Noordeloos and Dundas.
Fikre’s story echoes those of Naji Hamdan, Amir Meshal, Sharif Mobley, Gulet Mohamed, as well as Yusuf and Yahya Wehelie.
The six American Muslim men say that, while traveling abroad, they were arrested, questioned, and in some cases abused by local security forces at the behest of the US government.