A Somali military instructor sentenced to 15 years in prison for spying for Al Shabaab jihadists

19 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –

A military court has sentenced a Somali instructor to 15 years in prison this Sunday for supplying classified information to the jihadist organization Al Shabaab.

The convicted man, Abdi Azis Husein Nur Mursal, was identified as an Al Shabaab contact during an investigation into the ranks of the Army. According to the investigations, the instructor was cooperating with the jihadists due to his disenchantment with the Somali authorities.

The instructor even lied about his military rank by declaring that he was a colonel when in fact he was a second lieutenant, according to the Hiraan On Line news portal.

This is the second military official who has been identified as a collaborator of Al Shabaab since the beginning of the investigations after the conviction two weeks ago of now former captain Sharif Mohamed Barjadle Ayanle, convicted of helping the jihadists in a chain of attacks that killed 27 people in the capital, Mogadishu, in 2019.