SOMALIA - ALSHABAAB FORMER SPOKESMAN PUBLICLY EXECUTED BY FIRING SQUAD

The former spokesman for Somali terror group al Shabaab has been publicly executed by a government firing squad.

Hassan Hanafi, who was responsible for arranging news conferences for the al Qaeda-linked group, personally killed one journalist in Somalia and ordered the deaths of others.

He was extradited from Kenya last year, and executed on Monday at the police academy in Somali capital Mogadishu.

"Today, the court fulfils the execution of Hassan Hanafi who had killed journalists," Abdullahi Hassan, deputy judge of the court, told reporters at the scene.

Hanafi, 30, was led out of a police van in front of witnesses, tied to a pole in a sandy area of scrubland, and blindfolded.

The order was then given to shoot him.

Firing squad is the only execution method in Somalia.

Hanafi was feared by local journalists when he was the media liaison for the Islamist group.

He required journalists to report according to al Shabaab’s media rules, which included avoiding stories about the group’s military setbacks.

Hanafi also gave tours of battlefields and invited journalists to news conferences.

Al Shabaab wants to impose its strict version of sharia law in Somalia, where it frequently attacks government targets, hotels, and restaurants.

It was pushed out of Mogadishu by African Union peacekeeping forces in 2011 although it still controls many rural areas in southern Somalia.

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