“The Committee notes that for a number of years Somalia has been without a central government, that the international community negotiates with the warring factions and that some of the factions operating in Mogadishu have set up quasigovernmental institutions and are negotiating the establishment of a common administration. It follows then that, de facto, those factions exercise certain prerogatives that are comparable to those normally exercised by legitimate governments. Accordingly, the members of those factions can fall, for the purposes of the application of the Convention, within the phrase ‘public officials or other persons acting in an official capacity’ contained in article 1.” The following day, in SV v Canada, Communication No 49/1996, 15 May 1999, para 9.5, the Committee reiterated its established position: “The Committee considers that the issue of whether the State party has an obligation to refrain from expelling a person who might risk pain or suffering inflicted by a non-governmental entity, without the consent or acquiescence of the Government, falls outside the scope of article 3 of the Convention.” That was repeated in MPS v Australia, Communication No 138/1999, 30 April 2002, para 7.4: “The Committee recalls its previous jurisprudence that the issue whether the state party has an obligation to refrain from expelling a person who might risk pain or suffering inflicted by a non-governmental entity, without the consent or acquiescence of the Government, falls outside the scope of article 3 of the Convention.” The special nature of the Elmi case was made clear by the Committee in the case of HMHI v Australia, Communication No 177/2001, 1 May 2002, para 6.4: “The Committee recalls its jurisprudence that the State party’s obligation under article 3 to refrain from forcibly returning a person to another State where there are substantial grounds of a risk of torture, as defined in article 1 of the Convention, which requires actions by ‘a public official or other person acting in an official capacity’. Accordingly, in GRB v Sweden, the Page 45