US levels serious charges against NISA

The head of the spy agency maintains close ties with Qatar and he has been accused of complicity in the current political crisis in Somalia.

News Keydmedia Online
11 April 2021

MOGADISHU, Somalia - The U.S. department of state has released a bombshell report unveiled human rights abuses in Somalia, mostly committed by the country’s notorious National Intelligence and Security Agency [NISA].

The report entitled “2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices” accused NISA of mistreating suspects during interrogations and holding them for prolonged periods without following due process.

As the law in Somalia prohibits torture and inhuman treatment, NISA has engaged in instances of torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment against people, including journalists.

In October last year, NISA held Radio Kulmiye journalist Abdullahi Kulmiye Addow after he interviewed a businessman Abukar Adani who publicly criticized the government and expressed pro-al-Shabaab views.

On the eve of the Southwest state leadership election in Dec. 2018, former Al-Shabaab deputy leader and spokesman Mukhtar Robow had been arrested by Ethiopian soldiers and placed in NISA jail in Mogadishu.

Robow who was cleared to run for Southwest State presidency after his surrender to the Somali government under a deal to offer him amnesty still remained under house arrest on unclear legal grounds.

There are remained multiple credible reports of rape and sexual abuse by government agents, primarily in the security forces, mainly NISA under the leadership of Fahad Yasin, the right-hand man of Farmajo.

in April, SNA troops were implicated in four rapes of women and girls of various ages, with one as young as three years old, in the Lower Shabelle region the liberation of Janale area, located in the south of Somalia.

The soldiers involved were arrested and face trial in military tribunals. Experts attribute a decline in such instances to the increasing professionalization of those forces with international partner assistance.

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