Somalian national faces US war crimes trial

A Somali national living in Virginia is facing a lawsuit accusing him of human rights abuses while he was a high-ranking officer during the brutal reign of former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. Yusuf Abdi Ali is in the dock in a US federal courtroom in Alexandria. Voice of America reports that the complainant is Farhan Warfaa who says he was tortured in 1988. At the time, Ali was commander of the Somali army's Fifth Brigade, which patrolled the breakaway region of Somaliland. Warfaa says he was detained for several months, during which time he was regularly stripped naked and beaten. Ali fled to Canada in 1991 but was deported to the US after his alleged war crimes were revealed in a television documentary. The report notes that the case was brought on Warfaa's behalf by the San Francisco-based Centre for Justice and Accountability, which seeks to bring alleged war criminals to justice