Moroccan IS fighters sentenced to death in Somalia
A military court in Somalia has sentenced six Islamic State fighters from Morocco to death, Azernews informs referring to BBC.
The men will be executed by a firing squad if their appeal, which they have one month to file, is unsuccessful.
"They came to Somalia to support Isis [IS} and destroy and shed blood," the court's deputy chairman, Col Ali Ibrahim Osman, told VOA Somali.
The men's lawyer said they had been misled into joining IS and were seeking to be deported to Morocco.
It is the first time authorities in the semi-autonomous Puntland region have charged or sentenced foreigners for joining IS.
The military court also gave an Ethiopian and a Somali 10-year prison sentences each, while freeing another Somali defendant due to insufficient evidence.
One of the prosecutors told BBC Somali that the militants were arrested in the Cal-Miskaat mountains, east of Bosaso, Puntland's commercial hub.
The mountains are a stronghold of Islamic State, which has a base there.
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