US investigates ex-Uber driver for Somalia torture

A former officer in the Somali army is being investigated in the United States for torture, extra-judicial killings and arbitrary detentions allegedly committed in the 1980s.

Yusuf Abdi Ali, known as Colonel Tukeh, was previously the commander of a military brigade during Siad Barre’s dictatorship.

Years after fleeing the region, allegations of abuses keep resurfacing.

In 1992, Ali was deported from Canada after witnesses in a documentary said he’d ordered numerous murders.

Ali later moved to the US and became an Uber driver, until three years ago a US jury convicted him of torturing a Somali teenager in 1987 – which he denied.

Ali was ordered to pay $500,000 (£420,000) to the victim, who said he’d survived by bribing gravediggers to spare him.

Now the man who was known as Col Tukeh has been detained, as US investigators look into widespread human rights abuses including murder and torture.