Somalia Islamists vow to punish Italian nun’s killers

By Sahal Abdulle

Carlo Di Renzo/European Pressphoto Agency The shooting of an Italian nun, Leonella Rose Sgorbati, 65, in Mogadishu yesterday raised doubts about the Islamists’ ability to bring peace.

MOGADISHU, Sept 18 (Reuters) – Powerful Islamists in Mogadishu vowed on Monday to bring the killers of an Italian nun to justice and said they were confident the shooting would not undermine the unprecedented peace in the capital.

Gunmen shot dead sister Leonella Sgorbati and her bodyguard on Sunday outside a children’s hospital in north Mogadishu where she had worked since 2002.

The killings were a blow to Mogadishu’s new Islamist rulers’ attempts to prove they have pacified one of the world’s most lawless cities since chasing out U.S.-backed warlords in June.

The Islamists arrested two men in the attack.

“This was a very unfortunate act,” Ibrahim Hassan Addou, in charge of foreign relations for the Islamists, told Reuters.

“We will work hard to avoid such incidents from happening again. This will not affect the security of Mogadishu.”

The attack drew immediate speculation of links to Muslim anger over Pope Benedict’s recent remarks on Islam, but Addou said such incidents happen everywhere in the world.

“We want to reduce the probability of such acts happening again, by making the security tighter and bringing these criminals to justice as soon as the investigation is over,” he said.

Sgorbati, born in 1940 in Piacenza in northern Italy, was from the Missionaries of the Consolation order based in Nepi near Rome. Her colleagues and students said they were shocked by the killings.

“Myself and the whole of Somalia is saddened,” a sobbing Ibado Muse, who worked with the slain nun, said. “No one will be able to fill the gap she left.”

Borne out of local courts practicing strict sharia law, the Islamist movement in June seized Mogadishu from U.S.-backed warlords who had run it for the past 15 years.

The Islamists have brought some order to the capital, which was awash with guns and where assassinations were common.

But critics say the Islamists harbour al Qaeda-linked militants in their ranks. The Islamists deny that, saying the West does not understand them and believes U.S. propaganda.

Top Islamist leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys has been accused by Washington of links to terrorism.

But in a televised talk show on Sunday night he said he shared a hotel with U.S. anti-terror officials during a recent trip to Djibouti and was not questioned by them.

“I was staying in the same hotel with them. They did not ask me any thing,” Aweys said.

“They were at airport that I landed at and flew from, they didn’t look like people who are looking for me,” he added.

Source: Reuters, Sept 18, 2006