Muhammad Ali Samatar

Muhammad Ali Samatar (Somali: Maxamed Cali Samatar, Arabic: محمد علي سمتر‎) (born 1931) is a Somali politician and former Prime Minister of Somalia from 1 February 1987 to 3 September 1990.^[1]

Biography

Samatar was born in 1931 in Somalia. A former army officer, he was a key figure in Somali politics throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

Samatar was part of the Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party, and was an important official in the government of Siad Barre. He served as a general in the Somali Armed Forces, as Defense Minister from 1980 to 1986, and as Prime Minister from February 1, 1987 to September 3, 1990, the first person to fill that post since Barre abolished the position upon assuming the presidency in 1969.

In 2009, a civil lawsuit seeking financial damages from Samatar was filed in the United States by a small group of Somalis, some of whom are naturalized U.S. citizens. The group said that they had suffered physical abuse in violation of international law at the hands of soldiers or other government officials under Samatar's command. However, the plaintiffs do not claim that Samatar personally committed the atrocities or that he was directly involved.^[2] Samantar claimed he was immune from responsibility under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. On June 1, 2010, the United States Supreme Court ruled unanimously against granting Samantar the immunity he had claimed, permitting the lawsuit against him to continue. ^[3]

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