Somali court hands wife of Daesh/ISIS ringleader 8 years in prison

By Mohammed Dhaysane

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AA) - A Somali military court sentenced a wife of the top local member of the Daesh/ISIS terrorist organization on Monday to eight years in prison, an official said.

The Somali National Army (SNA) court in the capital Mogadishu found Fartun Abdirashid Hassan guilty of membership in the terror group and running its finances, according to military court chief Hassan Ali Nur Shuute.

Fartun Abdirashid Hassan, the wife of Daesh/ISIS' ringleader in Somalia Abdukadir Moallim Mumin, will be held in a military prison. Security forces arrested her in a March 2022 operation on the northeastern outskirts of Mogadishu.

"She is now the wife of Daesh leader Abduqadir Mu'min. They met when he was an al-Shabaab (member) and they got married in 2011 in Mogadishu," the court said.

She also had ties to the late Bilal Al-Sudani, another senior member of Daesh in the Horn of Africa nation, according to the court.

Al-Sudani was killed in a US military operation in Somalia's northeastern province Barri on Thursday.

Ten other terrorists were also killed in the operation, which had sought to capture al-Sudani, described as taking place in a "mountainous cave complex." However, he was killed in the ensuing hostilities.

Al-Sudani was previously placed under US sanctions in 2012, when he was affiliated with the Somalia-based al-Shabaab terrorist group, and the US said he was supporting Daesh/ISIS' operations in Africa and beyond, particularly via fundraising, when he was targeted.