An alleged war criminal is on trial in Virginia. He may have been your Uber driver.
By Marisa Iati Marisa Iati Email Bio Follow May 15 at 3:58 PM An Alexandria, Va., man is in federal court this week facing accusations that he tortured and tried to kill a perceived Somali dissident in the 1980s. Outside of court, he has been driving for Uber and Lyft.
Ali has lived in the United States since the 1990s, the lawsuit says, after he spent five years as a commander in Somalia’s national army. He told CNN that he drives ride-sharing passengers full time and prefers weekend shifts because “that’s where the money is.” Jodi Page, a spokeswoman for Uber, said the company removed Ali’s access to the app and is reviewing the situation. Lyft has permanently banned Ali and will assist law enforcement if they choose to investigate, said Campbell Matthews, a spokeswoman for Lyft.
“Under federal law, consumer reporting agencies that process background checks rely on criminal records that have been filed in a court of law rather than unverified sources like Google search results,” David Patterson, a spokesman for Checkr, said in a statement. “Most employers don’t request background checks that include civil lawsuits between private parties because the information is too subjective to use for a hiring decision.
Ali was also in the room while Warfaa was tortured at least nine times, the lawsuit says. Warfaa claims soldiers sometimes tilted his body into an excruciatingly painful shape that was meant to look like the wings of the army’s MiG aircraft. The soldiers also took his clothing and kicked him repeatedly in the head, Warfaa says.
“Colonel Tukeh was one of the most ruthless commanders of the 20-year Siad Barre dictatorship and was responsible for the detention, cruel treatment, and death of a great many members of Farhan’s community during the country’s civil war,” the San Francisco-based Center for Justice & Accountability, which represents Warfaa, said in a statement. “When Siad Barre was eventually overthrown in 1991, Tukeh fled to Canada and later became a permanent resident of the United States.
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