A military court in northern Somalia has sentenced six Moroccan nationals to death for belonging to the Islamic State (IS) group.
The men, accused of aiming to “destroy and shed blood” in Somalia, face execution by firing squad if their appeals, which must be filed within a month, are rejected, BBC reported.
Colonel Ali Ibrahim Osman, the court’s deputy chairman, stated that the men came to Somalia specifically to support IS. Their defense lawyer, however, argued they were misled and seek deportation to Morocco.
This marks the first instance of foreign IS members facing charges and sentencing in the semi-autonomous Puntland region.
The court also sentenced an Ethiopian and a Somali to 10 years in prison each, while another Somali was acquitted due to insufficient evidence.
Authorities apprehended the militants in the Cal-Miskaat mountains, a known IS stronghold east of Puntland’s commercial hub, Bosaso.
Somalia’s IS branch, established in 2015 by defectors from the larger al-Shabab group, primarily engages in small-scale attacks and extortion of locals, according to the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
The death penalty, frequently employed in Somalia for terrorism-related offenses, has drawn criticism from human rights organizations. At least 55 executions took place in 2023, with 23 conducted by military authorities in Puntland and Mogadishu.
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