One of Somalia’s most popular comedians, known for his parodies of Islamist militants, has been shot dead in the capital, Mogadishu.
Abdi Jeylani Marshale was killed on Tuesday shortly after leaving a local radio station where he worked as a drama producer and performer. It is not yet known who carried out the killing, but last year Marshale was threatened by the extremist group al-Shabaab, prompting him to go into hiding in neighboring Somaliland for several days.
Witnesses told the BBC that Marshale was shot several times in the head and chest by two men armed with pistols. The gunmen have not been caught. Yusuf Keynan, a presenter at Kulmiye Radio, where Marshale worked, was quoted as saying: “He had not done anything wrong to anybody, as far as we are concerned, but they shot him in the head and shoulders.”
“This is a black day for the entire entertainment industry. He was a leader in Somalia comedy and everybody liked his performance,” Keynana said.
Kulmiye Radio reported that hundreds of journalists, relatives, supporters and dignitaries attended his funeral. The station owner, Osman Abdullah Guure, urged journalists to carry guns for protection: “I strongly encourage the journalists to take their guns and not consider any one protecting them; it is time to defend ourselves.”
Marshale also worked for Universal TV, a London-based Somalian satellite TV station. Another Universal employee, reporter and anchor Abdulkadir Omar Abdulle, survived a shooting on Saturday, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.
On Wednesday, Somalian security forces shot dead a would-be suicide bomber who tried to attack the venue of a national conference on a draft constitution, while a second attacker blew himself up, police said.
“The two bombers wore government uniform. Six policemen were injured,” police officer Colonel Mohamed Ali said.
The gathering overwhelmingly backed a new constitution — 621 in favor versus 13 against — paving the way for a new government to be elected this month under a UN-backed plan.
Somalian Constitutional Affairs Minister Abdirahman Hosh Jabril said: “This is an historic day — today we have witnessed the completion of a task that has been worked on for the last eight years.”
African Union troops and the UN-backed government have forced al-Shabaab out of Mogadishu, but the militant group still controls many areas of southern and central Somalia. The country has been without a functioning national government since 1991.
DEATH CONSTANTLY LOOMING: Decades of detention took a major toll on Iwao Hakamada’s mental health, his lawyers describing him as ‘living in a world of fantasy’ A Japanese man wrongly convicted of murder who was the world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been awarded US$1.44 million in compensation, an official said yesterday. The payout represents ￥12,500 (US$83) for each day of the more than four decades that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention, most of it on death row when each day could have been his last. It is a record for compensation of this kind, Japanese media said. The former boxer, now 89, was exonerated last year of a 1966 quadruple murder after a tireless campaign by his sister and others. The case sparked scrutiny of the justice system in
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
‘HUMAN NEGLIGENCE’: The fire is believed to have been caused by someone who was visiting an ancestral grave and accidentally started the blaze, the acting president said Deadly wildfires in South Korea worsened overnight, officials said yesterday, as dry, windy weather hampered efforts to contain one of the nation’s worst-ever fire outbreaks. More than a dozen different blazes broke out over the weekend, with Acting South Korean Interior and Safety Minister Ko Ki-dong reporting thousands of hectares burned and four people killed. “The wildfires have so far affected about 14,694 hectares, with damage continuing to grow,” Ko said. The extent of damage would make the fires collectively the third-largest in South Korea’s history. The largest was an April 2000 blaze that scorched 23,913 hectares across the east coast. More than 3,000
RSS