28 August 2013 :

Somalia's government executed a man who was convicted of murdering a journalist, a military official said, the first such execution in a country where those who kill media workers often evade justice. Aden Sheikh Abdi was killed by firing squad in the capital, Mogadishu, according to Col. Abdullahi Muse Keyse, a spokesman for Somalia's military court. "His execution is a new chapter for Somalia," he said. Last month a Mogadishu military tribunal found Abdi guilty of the murder late last year of reporter Hassan Yusuf Absuge, who worked for Radio Maanta in Mogadishu. During his trial Abdi was accused of belonging to the al-Qaida-linked extremist rebels of al-Shabab, who have staged multiple terrorist attacks across Somalia in a bloody campaign to seize political power. The Abdi case was the first to be actively prosecuted by the Somali government, coming after years of condemnations from rights groups who urged Somali authorities to do more to establish the rule of law and end the killings of journalists.