A military court in Puntland, Somalia’s northeastern semi-autonomous province, sentenced six Moroccans to death for allegedly fighting for the Islamic State (IS) extremist group in the East African country.
The Moroccans were captured in the mountains east of Bosaso, Puntland’s commercial capital.
The men, named Mohamed Hassan, Ahmed Najwi, Khalid Latha, Mohamed Binu Mohamed Ahmed, Ridwan Abdulkadir Osmany, and Ahmed Hussein Ibrahim, will be executed by firing squad if they fail to file an appeal.
Col. Ali Ibrahim Osman, the Puntland region’s presiding judge, said on Thursday that the six suspects were accused of receiving training from IS at its camp in the Cal-Miskaat Mountains in northeastern Somalia, which serves as the group’s stronghold.
An Ethiopian and a Somali were each sentenced to ten years in prison, while another Somali suspect was acquitted owing to a lack of evidence.
The Somali branch of IS was founded in 2015 by defectors from the al-Qaida-affiliated al-Shabab group, Somalia’s most notorious jihadist organization.
The organization is known for extorting locals and conducting small-scale, infrequent attacks. This is the first time that authorities in the semi-autonomous Puntland area have charged or punished foreign nationals for joining IS.