Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News-2013-05-31

An American Muslim has sued the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and State Department after claiming he was beaten with batons by prison interrogators while held in solitary confinement overseas for more than three months.

Yonas Fikre a Sudanese man of Eritrean descent said the torture was at the behest of the FBI and he was illegally held for 106 days in the United Arab Emirates after refusing to cooperate with Portland, Oregon,-based FBI agents in an interview in Sudan.

The lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Oregon seeks $30 million and several injunctions against the U.S. government concerning its treatment of citizens overseas.

Named in Fikre's suit are Attorney General Eric Holder, Secretary of State John Kerry, FBI Director Robert Mueller, FBI Terrorism Screening Center director Timothy Healy and the two Portland-based agents, David Noordeloos and Jason Dundas.

The State Department has confirmed previously that Fikre was held in Abu Dhabi "on unspecified charges," but said he was visited by State Department officials and showed no signs of mistreatment.

Fikre said the FBI agents named in the suit wanted him to become an informant at Portland's largest masjid, Masjid As-Saber, and were angered when he refused. He said interrogators in Abu Dhabi later used information Fikre had given to the FBI agents in his interrogation.

The masjid has come under scrutiny before. Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a Somali American convicted of plotting to set off a bomb in downtown Portland in 2010, occasionally worshipped there. A decade ago, seven Muslims with ties to the masjid were arrested following a failed effort to enter Afghanistan and fight U.S. forces.

Fikre came to Portland in 2006 and worked for a cellphone company for a period. In 2009, he decided to open an electronics retail business in Sudan. His wife remained in Portland.