The Somali military court has for the first time sentenced a woman to be executed for crimes against the military law.
According to the court martial, 35-year-old Zeynab Adan Noor, a soldier with the TFG and a resident of El Buur in the central region, was accused of providing the Islamist insurgents with weapons and revealing military strategies and offensive plans to the enemy.
Parts of the capital Mogadishu remains under emergency law following a directive by Somalia’s Transitional Federal President Sheikh Ahmed Sharif shortly after the exit of the militant al-Shabaab. The areas affected include all areas vacated by the Islamists insurgents, the main central market of Bakara as well as the internally-displaced persons’ (IDP) camps.
The court martial prosecutor Mohamed Hussein Hassan Mungab issued the sentence against the female soldier. The death sentence is the first since the election of President Sharif in 2009.
‘‘After balancing all the facts and listening to all witnesses even those representing the accused, the Somali court martial sentences Zeynab to execution for providing material and other support to the enemy,’’ Mungab declared in front of a panel of more than 100 soldiers who turned up to listen to the verdict.
The court martial has sentenced dozens to death with a sharp increase witnessed in the early months of 2011 when the African Union peace keeping troops (AMISOM) and TFG forces began gaining more grounds in the Mogadishu offensive. In March, the court recorded the highest number of executions.
Zeynab was found in possession of 87 rounds of ammunition allegedly intended to pass them to the militant fighters. The court prosecutor said they had all the evidence showing clearly how Zeynab assisted the militant group with mental and material support.
‘‘The military system is clear. Anyone who helps the enemy both mentally and materially shall be executed in accordance with the laws pertaining the Somali military without prejudice,’’ Mungab told Somalia Report shortly after the court session.
The TFG besides being a US-backed government has executed many soldiers in the past few months with most of the cases being looting, robbery and assisting the enemy forces. A lesson to TFG soldiers
The execution is set to take place in an undisclosed date in Mogadishu that has caused great worries within the TFG military force who view the punishment as a callous one. ‘‘Some crimes deserve different forms of punishment not necessarily execution,’’ a TFG soldier told Somalia Report.
Earlier this month, two soldiers were sentenced to execution for stealing three jerricans of cooking oil and a mobile phone from a shop in Bakara Market.
Elsewhere Abdi Ahmey Mahdi, 50 was sentenced to execution for allegedly shooting and seriously injuring his colleague. The Somalia army has undergone transformation in the past two years with the execution system seeing a decline in the crimes being committed by the TFG forces.
