Somali teen executes father's killer under Sharia

May 2, 12:53 PM (ET)
By Mohamed Ali Bile
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - A 16-year-old Somali boy stabbed his father's killer to death on Tuesday in a public execution ordered by an Islamic Court, witnesses said.
Omar Hussein, 45, was convicted under sharia law of killing teacher Sheik Osman Moallim two months ago in the capital Mogadishu after a dispute over his son's education.
An Islamic court in the Bermuda district of Mogadishu ordered that Moallim's son Mohamed should execute his father's killer in the same manner that his father was murdered.
Hundreds of people watched the teenager stab Hussein several times in the chest and throat at the Koranic school where his father had worked, witnesses including a Reuters reporter said.
"I am happy now because I killed the man who killed my father," Mohamed Moallim said.
Hussein, who was tied with a rope and flanked by Islamic court militia, shouted "There is no God but Allah!" in Arabic as he was killed.
Mogadishu's Islamic courts have created a semblance of order in the lawless capital by providing justice under sharia law, which states that if someone murders, they should also die.
Somalia plunged into chaos in 1991, when warlords ousted military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
A fledging interim government, formed in neighboring Kenya in 2004, is weakened by internal power struggles and has little control over the nation of 10 million people. Most are Muslim.
The execution was believed to be Somalia's first in public in recent years.