A former Somali colonel who moved to Columbus a decade ago said he never tortured a man who has sued him in federal court.

In the same motion to dismiss filed on Friday in U.S. District Court in Columbus, Abdi Magan said he did not authorize Abukar Ahmed’s torture either.

Pete Ezanidis, one of Magan’s attorneys, said this morning that the suit Ahmed filed in April is invalid because it was filed well after a 10-year federal statute of limitations had passed.

The motion also says Magan is immune to the lawsuit, according to U.S. common law.

Ahmed, a British resident, claims that Magan ordered Ahmed’s detention and torture in 1988.

Magan, who lives on the Northeast Side, served as the chief of investigations for the National Security Services of Somalia under Somali dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

In his affidavit, Magan acknowledged he was a member of the Barre government, but said that if any of the acts of torture Ahmed mention are true, “I knew nothing about it and certainly did not authorize it.”

Magan said he fled to Kenya as a refugee in 1991 after the Barre government collapsed, and that both of his children were killed by members of Ahmed’s Hawiye clan, a rival to Magan’s Darod clan.

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