An American couple has been investigated in Uganda for "severe torture" against their ten-year-old adopted son, Ugandan police said Tuesday.

Police confirmed in a statement that the man and woman, both aged thirty-two, were questioned on Friday and taken to the high-security Luzier prison on the outskirts of the capital, Kampala.

The indictment noted that the couple "continuously tortured" the child, who attended a disability institution between 2020 and 2022.

Neighbours of the couple reported what was happening to the authorities.

During the raid on the couple's home, police found CCTV footage showing the child being forced to squat in an "uncomfortable position", "provided with only cold food and forced to sleep on a stage without a mattress or pillow".

The boy is one of three adopted children of the couple who arrived in Uganda in 2017 to volunteer for a U.S.-based nonprofit who lived in Jinja before moving to Nagoro, an upscale suburb of Kampala, to work for a startup.

In 2020, the U.S. government sanctioned a network that helped unorphaned Ugandan children join families in the United States.