The Plight of a Double Amputee

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The four men who each had a hand and foot cut off stand in a square in Mogadishu on 22 Jun 2009 before their sentence was carried out

When a militia loyal to al-Shabaab recently amputated the wrists and the feet of four young men in Mogadishu, no one felt the implications better than Abdi, a double amputee who led a difficult life without his right hand and left foot for nearly a decade. The 31-year-old, Mogadishu resident, who asked us not to use his full name because he feared repercussions, said the recent amputations reminded him of a horrible chapter in his life."It's a very bad and a very sad feeling," he said in an exclusive interview with the VOA Somali Service. "If you lose your hand and foot judiciously, it’s understandable. But if you lose them injudiciously...that haunts me to date."In a graphic account of his story, Abdi said that a man he worked for as a driver accused him of looting, stealing and injuring another man, an allegation he adamantly denies. A clan court in northern Mogadishu then condemned him to double amputation, “without sufficient evidence, due process or nothing,” he said.It was a hot September day in 1999, said Abdi, when he was summoned to an open field, chained in the hands and the legs. A few hours into a “hasty hearing,” Abdi said four men held him to the ground while a masked man cut off his right hand and left leg with a machete.Asked if he was anesthetized to relief the pain, Abdi lamented: “No, not at all. They cut my beloved hand and feet forcefully, and in an excruciating pain.”With no medical attention on hand, Abdi said he almost bled to death before being rushed to a nearby hospital. He was discharged after only one day of treatment. The untreated injuries he sustained pain him to date, he said.
The four men who each had a hand and foot cut off stand in a square in Mogadishu on 22 Jun 2009 before their sentence was carried out
When Abdi learned about this week’s amputations in Mogadishu, he said he realized that the four young men will “enter a dark chapter of their young life, undeservedly.”The clan court that sentenced Abdi and potentially dozens of others to amputations no longer exists, a fact not lost to Abdi. “It pains me so much that I lost my hand and my foot to selective justice. It saddens me immeasurably.”Muslim scholars say al-Shabaab’s swift application of the harshest codes in Sharia law is categorically un-Islamic. Such precipitous sentencing ignores a crucial jurisprudence that stipulates that every possible excuse must be exhausted before one is condemned to amputation, said Sharif Abdirahman, the imam of Darul-Hijra Islamic Center in Minneapolis.The high evidentiary bar set for such harsh sentences, said the imam, renders it almost impossible to implement them. “The harsh penal codes are essentially designed as a preventative measure,” he added, “that’s why it was historically implemented only in exceptionally rare circumstances.”In addition, the imam said the implementing party must be the legal authority of the land, and must control the jurisdiction permanently---none of which applies to al-Shabaab.Meanwhile, Abdi, who like the recently amputated young men was never afforded an attorney, says life without his hand and foot has been unusually onerous. Asked what advice he would give al-Shabaab, he said people must be taught the Islamic faith so that they know what they are signing up for, before their body parts are cut off.“Justice must not be applied expeditiously. People have the right to know the rules of the game,” he said, grudgingly.
Source: VOA, June 26, 2006