Two sentenced to life in prison over bomb attack on airline in Somalia

Two men have been sentenced to life in prison by a military court in Somalia for being behind the bomb attack on Daallo Airlines passenger plane which occurred last February.

Reports say eight other people, including a woman, were sentenced to between six months and four years in prison over the blast, which happened shortly after take-off from Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, which killed the bomber and left a hole in the plane’s fuselage.

The blast was later claimed by Somalia’s militant Islamist group al-Shabab which however admitted at the time that it had failed in its attempt to bring down the plane.

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Abdiwali Mahmud Maow, a former security official at the main airport in Mogadishu was also handed a life sentence in verdicts which were the first in connection with the blast along with Arais Hashi Abdi, who was tried in absentia as he had evaded arrest.

Addiwali and Arais were convicted of being members of al-Shabab and the other eight were convicted of helping to plan the attack, but not of membership of the al-Qaeda-linked militant group.

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