Photo/ David Ross Elliott
Farhan Mohamoud Tani Warfaa is a native and resident of Somaliland (or northwestern Somalia), where he lives with his wife and eight children.
During the war in Somalia in the 1980s, Mr. Warfaa and others from his village were arrested by soldiers under the command of Colonel Yusuf Abdi Ali, also known as Colonel Tukeh. The commander’s troops tortured Mr. Warfaa, including by beatings and by putting him in the excruciatingly painful “Mig” position. This form of torture required the victims’ hands and feet to be tied together behind their backs so that their bodies were arched backward in a tilted U-shape, a shape that was thought to resemble the Somali Air Force’s Mig aircraft.
After months of torture and interrogations, Col. Ali shot Mr. Warfaa five times at point blank range, leaving him for dead. Mr. Warfaa miraculously survived and is now seeking justice for these crimes in Virginia, where Col. Ali has lived since 1996. Mr. Warfaa will never forget what happened to him and wants to see justice served, whether it’s on Somaliland or U.S. soil. This case has given him hope and he is praying it will both deter others from committing human rights abuses and give courage to fellow survivors.
