[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

May 4


SOMALIA:

TEEN EXECUTES FATHER'S KILLER UNDER ISLAMIC LAW


A Somali teenager killed a man convicted by an Islamic court of murdering
his father in what is believed to be Mogadishu's 1st public execution
under Sharia Islamic law in a decade.

At a heavily attended event ordered and supervised by the court,
16-year-old Mohamed Moalim approached the condemned man, Omar Hussein,
whowas hooded and tied to a pole, and stabbed him to death, witnesses
said.

A crowd of several hundred watched as Moalim repeatedly knifed Hussein in
the chest, neck and head in accordance with the court's ruling that found
him guilty of murdering the boy's father 2 months previously, they said.
"My father's killer is now gone," Moalim calmly told AFP at the conclusion
of the open-air execution in Mogadishu's south-central Bermuda
neighborhood.

Moalim's relatives said both they and Hussein's family had accepted the
verdict of the court, which was hailed by Islamic spiritual leaders in
Bermuda as just and a sign that order was being restored to the lawless
capital.

"Islam is the only solace to overcome the difficulties we are facing,"
said Sheikh Ibrahim Mohamed Nur, an imam. "The justice of Allah has been
implemented and there is no better justice than what Allah recommended."

"The public is aware in Bermuda from today on that killers won't go
unpunished as they did in the past," he told AFP.

But others, including some from Hussein's extended family who complained
they had not had a chance to pay compensation to Moalim's relatives and
possibly head off the execution, expressed concern.

"Our man was not given justice," said Ismail Haji Hassan. "You cannot stop
violence by another sort of violence," said a young bystander who gave his
name only as Mohamoud.

(source: Agence France Presse)