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Five members of the radical Somali Al-Ittihad al-Islamiya group were on Thursday sentenced to death for committing "terrorist acts" in Ethiopia.
The men face death by hanging after being convicted of killing 27 people in the attacks, according to the sentence handed down by Ethiopia's Federal High Court in Addis Ababa.
Al-Ittihad was placed on the US list of terrorist groups after the September 11 terror attacks, in the belief that it has links to Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda terror network. Ethiopia has been waging a war against Al-Ittihad al-Islamiya - meaning Islamic Unity - since the mid-nineties in the southeast of the country. Analysts say that Al-Ittihad is now very weak, having lost much of its formal structure, and has a mostly domestic agenda.
A statement from the court said the five were "sentenced to death by hanging for perpetrating terrorist acts in various parts of Ethiopia". The men have the right to appeal, but if the convictions are upheld, the executions would be carried out in public, the statement said.
The court said the convicts had killed 27 people in their terror campaign, injuring 16 others, and causing thousands of dollars worth of damage. They were found guilty of trying to overthrow the government and operating terror-training camps.
The five were named as Mohammed Mahmud Farah, Mohammed Hassan Mahmud, Ibrahim Hussein Nalaye, Mohammed Alimi Liban and Mohammed Ahmed Abdullahi. The court also sentenced five other members of the group to prison terms ranging from five to 25 years' "rigorous imprisonment".
They were convicted of throwing a hand grenade into a busy market place in Dire Dawa in the east of the country killing 15 in May 1995, including Dutch tourists. Six people were also killed in a 1995 bomb blast at the Ghion Hotel, one of the largest state-owned hotels in the Ethiopian capital. A year later, two people were killed in another attack on a state-owned hotel.
The last person to be executed in Ethiopia was in 1997. Any execution in Ethiopia has to be authorised by the president.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
