Uber driver turns out to be Somali war criminal

A former Uber driver has been found responsible for torturing a man during Somalia‘s civil war more than 30 years ago.

Former Somali army colonel Yusuf Abdi Ali, known as “Tukeh” or “the crow”, tortured and shot Farhan Mohamoud Tani Warfaa, a civil jury in the US capital of Washington DC found.

Mr Warfaa told the court that he was 17-years-old and herding cattle when he was rounded up during a mass arrest in December 1987 over a missing water-tanker truck.

During weeks of interrogations, he said he was regularly beaten and hogtied in a position known as the “Mig,” in which his hands and feet were stretched behind his back in a painful position. It was named after the Somali Air Force’s MIG aircraft

Finally, he said Colonel Tukeh shot him several times and left him for dead when his interrogation was interrupted by an insurgent attack.

Ali ordered his underlings to bury Mr Warfaa, but the soldiers quickly realised he was still alive and instead solicited a bribe from his family to let him live, his lawsuit claimed.

Ali, who now lives in Alexandria, Virginia, acknowledged he was a Somali colonel, but denied torturing Mr Warfaa.

His defence attorney Joseph Peter Drennan argued that his accusers were motivated by “clan vengeance and the agenda of advancing some kind of victimhood status for the Isaaq people.”

But the jury nonetheless found him responsible for the torture of Mr Warfaa.

However, it explicitly rejected an allegation Ali was responsible for the attempted extrajudicial killing of Mr Warfaa, despite Mr Warfaa's direct testimony that it was Ali who shot him.

After three days of deliberations Mr Wafaa was awarded $500,000 (£395,000) in damages.

Mr Warfaa, who brought the lawsuit with help from the San Francisco-based centre for Justice and Accountability, said in a statement the verdict was “a vindication not only for me, but also for many others in Somaliland who suffered under Col Tukeh’s command”.

It is unclear whether Warfaa will be able to collect any significant payment.

Ali’s lawyer, Joseph Peter Drennan, said his client does not have that kind of money and he had until very recently been working as an Uber driver until he lost that job because of publicity over his case.

Uber said he had been "permanently removed" from the app