Friday February 15, 2019
udges at the federal High Court 4th Criminal Bench here in the
capital have, today, accepted federal prosecutors’ request to withhold
list of witnesses from the defense team in high profile criminal case
involving former Somali regional state president Abdi Muhamud Omer a.k.a
Abdi Iley.
Prosecutors have argued to withhold the list of names
in favor of witnesses protection due to the nature of the criminal case,
which includes, but not limited to, indictments of 47 individuals with
high level human rights abuse, attempt to violently overthrow the
constitutional order and attempt to incite inter-communal violence in
Somali regional state during the weekend of August 04/2018.However,
out of the total of 47 defendants in the same case, only six are
currently under police custody.
They include, Abd Muhamud Omer; Rahma
Mohammed Haybe, former head of women and children’s affairs bureau; and
Abdulrezak Sehane Elmi, former head of the diaspora affairs office of
the Somali regional state; as well as Ferhan Tahir, former police
commissioner commissioner of the region, and two individuals: Worseme
Sheik Abdi and Guled Obel Dawud.
Of the six defendants, only the
first four have their charges formally read out for them and know the
details of the charges (with Abdi telling the court last week that he
recognizes all charges as nothing but “deliberately coordinated lies”).
However, Worseme Sheik Abdi and Guled Obel Dawud have not received
copies of the charges nor have they been briefed about it due to lack of
Somali language translators at the court. The judges have ruled today
for a presence of translators as of the next hearing, which is set for
February 27.
Background
On January 25, the Attorney General’s office revealed that the August violence resulted
in the killings of 58 people while 266 were injured. the report by the
AG also revealed a gruesome details which were previously unreported,
including the discovery of a mass grave where the remains of 42 of the
victims was found.
Eight more bodies were discovered inside the
premises of St. Michael Church in Jigjiga city. The report also said
ten women were raped in just a span of three days but added there could
be more unreported cases of rapes. And properties worth about 421
million birr were also vandalized in the violence.