Somalia parades four al-Shabaab 'brides' in military court
A photo combination of video frame grab images of the four women arrested and arraigned in a military court in Mogadishu, Somalia, based on charges of assisting the Al Shabaab on August 9, 2023.
Four Somali women have appeared before a military court in Mogadishu on terrorism-related charges.
The quartet, identified as Khadra Mohamed Isse, Aisha Muhyadin Mohamud, Zahra Hussein Isse and Naima Farah Sheikhdoon, were accused of aiding al-Shabaab leaders in the Lower Shabelle region, south of the Somali capital Mogadishu.
The prosecutor said on Tuesday that the women were attempting to provide false information to government security personnel when they were intercepted on April 21, 2023, at a security checkpoint some 50km south of Mogadishu, commonly known as K50.
As evidence against the four women, allegedly wives of leaders of the extremist group al-Shabaab, the court heard that they were arrested while travelling in a vehicle with bags of explosives.
Prosecutors insisted that the women were returning in a vehicle that had come from Kunyo Barrow, an agricultural town in an area controlled by al-Shabaab, where they had allegedly met their husbands.
“The women were not innocent travellers. They went to Kunyo Barrow to meet with their husbands in the bushes,” a prosecutor stated. The women claimed they were not aware of their husbands’ alleged association with terrorism.
The driver of the intercepted vehicle, who also appeared in court, confessed that he had been instructed to deliver the consignment to a businessman in Bakara market, the largest trading centre in Mogadishu.
At the adjournment of the hearing, the presiding judge announced that the verdict would be announced in the coming days.
