An American arrested as he fled unrest in Somalia is now being held in Ethiopia in "lawless" circumstances, a lawyer for his family said Friday, calling for the US authorities to bring the man home.
Amir Meshal, 24, from the northeastern state of New Jersey, fled Somalia and was arrested in January in neighboring Kenya where he was questioned by US agents from the FBI intelligence agency, the lawyer, Jonathan Hafetz, told AFP.
However, US authorities did not take custody of Meshal, according to a US Justice Department statement. He was sent back to Somalia but was later seized again and is now detained in Kenya's northern neighbor Ethiopia.
The New York-based group Human Rights Watch has accused Ethiopia of running a covert program detaining foreign Islamists, with support from Kenya, the United States and Somalia's transitional government.
Hafetz, a lawyer at the Washington-based law institute the Brennan Center for Justice, described Meshal's detention as "a product of the lawless process that's taking place in Ethiopia now with the US involved."
Another US suspect, 28-year-old Daniel Maldonado, was detained in the same circumstances but transferred to the United States soon after. He was charged there on February with training for "holy war" in Somalia.
"It's very suspicious that one American citizen has been brought back and charged, and Mr Meshal, who the FBI say they don't intend to charge, is still sitting in an Ethiopian prison," Hafetz said.
The US Justice Department confirmed Meshal had been interviewed by the FBI but said the suspect was not in US custody and there were no charges against him in the United States.
US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Meshal was in good health and had received three visits from US consular officials. "He's still in good shape" and has suffered "no mistreatment," McCormack said.
Meshal went to Somalia to "study Islam," Hafetz said, but fled the country when fighting broke out between Islamists and Somali forces backed by the Ethiopian army.
