KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- A Samoan diplomat has filed a federal lawsuit against immigration officials who charged him last year with falsely claiming to be a U.S. citizen and kept him in Missouri for more than three months.

Hans Joachim Keil is a member of the south Pacific island nation's parliament and holds dual citizenship in the U.S. and Samoa. He was arrested in Branson in September 2008 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers who claimed he was not a U.S. citizen and had illegally presented his passport as proof of his status.

Keil claims in his suit, filed Friday in Springfield, that he was illegally held in jail for nine days and wasn't allowed to contact his embassy. He also was ordered to remain in Missouri while charges against him were pending.

His detention prompted a protest from the Samoan government, which called the citizenship question a misunderstanding. The charges were dismissed in December after it was determined that Keil, a U.S. Air Force veteran, was a U.S. citizen.

"I think we're looking at some very overzealous, undertrained officers," said his attorney, Rekha Sharma-Crawford. "Clearly there were lots of red flags in this case that should have caused agents to pause."

Keil, 65, is Samoa's associate minister of commerce, labor and industry. In his lawsuit, Keil claims his Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights were violated and that he suffered emotional and mental duress due to unlawful imprisonment. He is seeking unspecified punitive damages.

"I have a client who is a former Vietnam-era military serviceman who has faced a lot of negative publicity," Sharma-Crawford said. "He has been very badly emotionally scarred as a result of this treatment. Ultimately, is there a dollar figure? How do you put a dollar figure on the feelings of person who feels like he served his country and that country let him down?"

Named in the lawsuit are Glenn Triveline, acting field officer director for ICE; Michael Spinella, resident ICE agent in charge of the Springfield office; Laura Foster and Todd Hamilton, ICE special agents; and Jack Barnhart, an agent with the State Department's Diplomatic Security Service. An ICE spokeswoman declined to comment on pending litigation against the agents.

Sharma-Crawford says Keil was taken into custody at Branson's Dutton Family Theater while he was in town visiting his daughter.

"The tragedy in all of this is that he was so badly scarred, he is terrified to return to the U.S.," she said. "He is afraid he is going to be arrested again. "Obviously he is going to need to come back at some point and try to deal with psychological issues."

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