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September 22, 2006

Somalia: Islamists Carry Out First Public Execution Since Gaining Power

News SomaliNet and from Deutsche Presse Agentur via the Raw Story and Monsters & Critics reports that thousands turned out to watch the public execution of a man in Mogadishu.

The man who was publicly killed was convicted by the Islamic courts of killing a business man, in order to steal his cellular phone. The man, Abdikadir Mohamed Diriye who was in his early 20s, had confessed to killing Mohamed Hassan Barre on September 10 this month. His victim had been working for the AL-Towba company.

A second man had also been given the death penalty, but his family had appealed for clemency, and he had his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment.

About 6,000 people turned out to view the execution, which took place this morning.

200 militia from the Islamist Courts, wearing red and white turbans, policed the crowd at the execution. Journalists and others were told not to take photographs, though they had been specifically invited to attend, to view "justice" in action.

As well as journalists and members of the public, the relatives of the murdered businessman were also present in the crowd. Rahmo Jimale, mother of Mr Barre, said after the event that she was happy that the execution had taken place.

Diriye, the prisoner, had been convicted yesterday in an Islamic Court which convened in a dairy factory. He was led out, and his hands and feet were bound. His head was covered. He was told to pray, and then a firing squad of eight individuals took aim and shot him in the chest. He died instantly.

Some of the crowd cried "Allahu Akbar" when he was shot, while others threw up.

Sheikh Yusuf Mohamed Siyad, a security official of the Union of Islamic Courts said that the execution "should be a lesson to everyone. Those who commit murder will be punished in this way."

This was the first public execution to have taken place since the Islamic Court militias took control of Mogadishu on June 5.

An earlier, more barbaric, public execution took place on May 2, when a schoolteacher who had killed a student's parent was executed in a Koranic school in Bermuda (Permuda), a suburb of Mogadishu. The Islamic Courts authorised the son of the murdered man to kill his teacher. The prisoner was bound and tied to a post with his head covered, then repeatedly stabbed in the throat, face and chest by the teenager.

DPA states that three people were executed in the past week in the semi-autonomous "state" of Somaliland in northwest Somalia.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at September 22, 2006 3:39 PM

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Posted by: Sir Henry Morgan at September 22, 2006 4:09 PM

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