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Guards get jail terms for Mogadishu prison break

Storyline:National News

Six prison guards have been sentenced to between six months and five years for their role in the August 12 jailbreak in Mogadishu Central Jail that left at least six people dead. The military court which delivered its verdict today also stripped two of the guards of their jobs.

Three guards- Abdullahi Moalim Hussein, Mohamed Dahir Mohamed, and Abdi Jire Yusuf were slapped with five-year jail terms and struck off the list of employees of the prison. Another prison, Abdi Ahmed Mohamud was acquitted for lack of evidence.

The court also sentenced to death one of the convicts who escaped during the attack and went ahead to kill two people. The court found Mubarak Ibrahim guilty of escaping from prison and killing Mohamed Yusuf Tohow a soldier and a civilian identified as Mukhtar Abdullahi Muse. He was sentenced in absentia.

On a material day, fire broke out at central jail followed by indiscriminate shooting that left at least six people among them guards and inmates dead. Questions arose about how some of the weapons including hand grenades found a way into the facility.

But the court unveiled that mystery today when it sentenced Mohamed Nur Isak to five years for smuggling weapons into the correctional facility. The court held that Isak, who authorities in Mogadishu have accused of robbing unsuspecting members of the public funds through shady ‘forex business’ sneaked in weapons into the facility.

Isak, the court judge Col. Ali Shute ruled, had used his permit to supply food and non-food items to the prison to smuggle in weapons to the hardcore convicts in collusion with some of the guards.