MOGADISHU, Somalia – A top court in the Somali capital started live televising corruption trials as the hearing of a case against four junior officials from the immigration department kicks off at a regional court in Mogadishu, on Thursday.
Somalia’s prosecutors recently filed charges against 18 officials accused of corruption, theft and diversion of public funds, falsification of documents, and dereliction of duty.
The defendants are the former director of the Immigration and Nationality Agency, Mohamed Aden Koofi, who is accused of embezzling more than 4 million dollars by the Prosecutor’s Office months ago.
Also among the defendants is Abdulkadir Ilmi Ali, Koofi’s successor who faces an allegation of corruption of 5,327,355 dollars. Both officials fled from Somalia ahead of the issuance of their arrest warrant by the court.
Osman Hassan Osoble, Abdikafi Hassan Mohamed, and a Tax official with the Ministry of Finance named Muhiyedin Hassan Jurus who is accused of misappropriating 20 million dollars. He is also on the run and will be sentenced in absentia.
The Banadir Regional Court has previously sentenced other officials working for the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs of the Federal Government of Somalia, staff members from the Central Bank, and the Immigration Agency.
Somalia is ranked the world’s most corrupt country, according to the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) due to lawlessness and lack of a powerful government that controls assets.
