Somali Woman Stoned to Death for Committing Adultery (Update1)By Hamsa Omar
Oct. 28 (Bloomberg) -- A 23-year-old Somali woman was stoned to death in Kismayo after being convicted of adultery in a Shariah court established by Islamists who control the southern port city, an eyewitness said.
(Photo: A Somali crowd gather at a public execution)
Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was buried in the ground up to her neck and her head covered with a black sack before she was executed, Yusuf Abdi Mohamed, a resident who attended the public event, said in a phone interview today from Kismayo, 500 kilometers (310 miles) southwest of the capital, Mogadishu. She had earlier confessed to the offense, which is banned by Muslim Shariah law.
It was the first such execution in Kismayo since the Islamist al-Shabaab militia captured the city in August. Shariah courts operate under a code of Islamic principles first established in the Arab world by the Muslim prophet Muhammad in the seventh century.
Somalia is in its 18th year of civil war and hasn't had a functioning central administration since the ouster of former dictator Mohammed Siad Barre in 1991. Violence has escalated since Ethiopian troops helped Somalia's United Nations-backed government oust the Islamic Courts Union militia from southern and central parts of the country in January 2007.
