{"id":35250,"date":"2017-06-20T12:44:51","date_gmt":"2017-06-20T12:44:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/somali-soldier-who-killed-minister-siraji-gets\/"},"modified":"2017-06-20T12:44:44","modified_gmt":"2017-06-20T12:44:44","slug":"somali-soldier-who-killed-minister-siraji-gets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/somali-soldier-who-killed-minister-siraji-gets\/","title":{"rendered":"Somali soldier who killed minister Siraji gets death sentence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{The Somali soldier who shot dead the country&#8217;s youngest-ever cabinet minister last month has been sentenced to death by firing squad.}<\/p>\n<p>Abas Abdullahi Siraji was in his car near the presidential palace in Mogadishu when he was killed by Ahmed Abdullahi Abdi, who reportedly mistook him for a militant Islamist.<br \/>\nThe minister&#8217;s death caused shock and anger at the time.<\/p>\n<p>The military court which sentenced the soldier said he can appeal.<\/p>\n<p>His lawyers argued that the killing was an accident, the AFP news agency reports.<\/p>\n<p>They said that the minister&#8217;s car attracted suspicion after it drove up behind the car carrying the auditor general, who the soldier was protecting.<\/p>\n<p>At 31, Mr Siraji became Somalia&#8217;s youngest-ever member of parliament last November before becoming the minister of public works earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p>He grew up as a refugee in neighbouring Kenya, home to hundreds of thousands of Somalis who fled drought and conflict, and was seen a role model for his widely admired determination to succeed.<\/p>\n<p>Sensing his popularity with the youth, President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed Farmajo appointed him to the cabinet.<\/p>\n<p>When Mr Siraji was killed, the president cut short a visit to Ethiopia to attend his state funeral.<\/p>\n<p>Somalia has been wracked by conflict since the long-serving ruler Siad Barre was ousted in 1991.<\/p>\n<p>It is currently battling militant Islamists from the al-Shabab group, which is affiliated to al-Qaeda.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-20932 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_95898321_abbaas4.jpg\" alt=\"Abas Abdullahi Siraji was Somalia&#039;s youngest-ever cabinet minister\" \/><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-20931 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_95898637_sawirkawasiirka1-2.jpg\" alt=\"The minister was in his vehicle near the presidential palace when he was shot\" \/><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-20933 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_95900422_32f26b65-afe9-46dc-835b-dd42056c8922.jpg\" alt=\"The president and many other dignitaries attended Mr Abas&#039; funeral\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>Source:BBC <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{The Somali soldier who shot dead the country&#8217;s youngest-ever cabinet minister last month has been sentenced to death by firing squad.} Abas Abdullahi Siraji was in his car near the presidential palace in Mogadishu when he was killed by Ahmed Abdullahi Abdi, who reportedly mistook him for a militant Islamist. The minister&#8217;s death caused shock [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-35250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-justice","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35250\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35250"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=35250"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=35250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}