Samantar v. Yousuf

For other uses, see Samata (disambiguation).

Samantar v. Yousuf, 560 U.S. 305 (2010), is a decision by the United States Supreme Court concerning whether Muhammad Ali Samatar, prime minister of Somalia (during the dictatorship of Siad Barre) from 1987 to 1990, could be sued in United States courts for allegedly overseeing killings and other atrocities. Samatar then lived in Virginia, and some of his victims had sued him under the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991.

Samantar v. Yousuf
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued March 3, 2010 Decided June 1, 2010
Full case name	Mohamed Ali Samantar, Petitioner v. Bashe Abdi Yousuf, et al.
Docket no.	08-1555
Citations	560 U.S. 305 (more) 130 S. Ct. 2278; 176 L. Ed. 2d 1047
Case history
Prior	Yousuf v. Samantar, 552 F.3d 371 (4th Cir. 2009); cert. granted, 557 U.S. 965 (2009).
Holding
The FSIA, which provides that a "foreign state shall be immune from the jurisdiction" of both federal and state courts except as provided in the Act, 28 U. S. C. §1604, did not govern petitioner's claim of immunity.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Antonin Scalia Anthony Kennedy · Clarence Thomas Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer Samuel Alito · Sonia Sotomayor
Case opinions
Majority	Stevens, joined by Roberts, Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Alito, Sotomayor
Concurrence	Alito
Concurrence	Thomas (in part)
Concurrence	Scalia (in judgment)
Laws applied
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act

In a previous decision, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that the former Somalian government official is not covered by, and therefore not entitled to immunity under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. The Court remanded to District Court to determine whether defendant is entitled to common law immunity.

See also

• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 560
• Jones v. Ministry of Interior for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (comparable 2006 decision of the House of Lords)

Further reading

• Liptak, Adam (March 3, 2010), "Supreme Court Weighs Lawsuit Over Torture in Somalia", New York Times.
• Liptak, Adam (June 1, 2010), "Mere Silence Doesn't Invoke Miranda, Justices Say", New York Times.

External links

• Text of Samantar v. Yousuf, 560 U.S. 305 (2010) is available from: CourtListener Justia Oyez (oral argument audio) Supreme Court (slip opinion) (archived)