Mogadishu, July 7, 2006 – Somali Muslims who fail to perform daily prayers will be killed in accordance with Koranic law under an edict issued by a leading cleric.

The requirement for Muslims to pray five times a day under penalty of death appears to confirm the hard-line nature of the increasingly powerful Sharia courts in the Somali capital, Mogadishu.

"He who does not perform prayers will be considered as infidel and Sharia law orders that that person be killed," said Sheikh Abdalla Ali, a founder and high-ranking official in the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia.

"Sharia law orders the killing of any Muslim person when he fails to perform prayers," he said in an address at the opening of a new Islamic court in Mogadishu's southern Gubta neighborhood.

It was not immediately clear who would enforce the regulation or how, but the courts have well-armed militias that routed a US-backed alliance of warlords from Mogadishu last month after four months of bloody fighting.

Militia members shot and killed two people in central Somalia late on Tuesday while quelling a protest against a ban on watching the soccer World Cup at a local cinema. The militia members have since been jailed.

Source: The Age

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