Hiiraan Online
Wednesday September 26, 2018
BOSSASO (HOL) – A military court in northeastern Somalia has sentenced three men to death by firing squad, after they were found guilty of joining an armed group affiliated with Islamic State group (IS) and al-Shabab group respectively.
Two of the militants convicted by a military judge of being members of an IS-linked local armed group, Hassan Lamow and Yasin Osman Abdi have been sentenced to death by firing squad.
Wednesday’s trial, held under tight security also saw the judge sentenced the third man, Hassan Mohamed Ali, convicted of being a member of the Al-Qaeda linked al-Shabab group to death by firing squad.
Three more other men convicted of having links with al-Shabab have been sentenced to life in prison.
Fighters from the two armed groups are fighting security forces in Puntland, a semiautonomous state in northeastern Somalia, a region which along with its neighboring Somaliland, a breakaway enclave have escaped decades-old civil unrest that had largely plagued the country’s south.
Hundreds of suspected militants linked to the two groups arrested by security forces are currently being held in jails in the region. Many inmates wait years for their cases to grind through courts, something decried by local and international rights group as denial of basic rights by the region’s authorities.