Somalia: Man executed for journalists' killings

yahoo.com

A former journalist who joined the Islamic extremist group al-Shabab was executed Monday by firing squad in Somalia's capital for the killings of five Somali journalists.

Hassan Hanafi Haji, who was extradited from Kenya last year on the request of the Somali government, was executed at a police academy in Mogadishu. Firing squad is the only execution method in Somalia.

He was led out of a police van in chains before a crowd of journalists, many of whom remembered Haji with a degree of fear when he was media liaison to al-Shabab and was known to threaten journalists.

Haji was bound to a pole and closed his eyes in apparent fear as the firing squad marched in. He was then blindfolded.

Once the order was given, shots rang out randomly and Haji's bloody body dropped to the ground.

"Justice served -- it was his turn to taste the pain of death," said a Somali journalist who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal. Medical workers then checked the body and prepared it for burial.