Murder Rate Decreased in Somaliland As Result of the Recent Death Penalty Execution
Ahmed M. Diriye, Hargeisa, Somaliland
The murder rate has decrease in Somaliland from 1.8 per 100,000 residents in 2012 to 1.6 in 2016, which equivalent to down by 12.5%. The death penalty execution re-initiated by the incumbent government could be associated to this homicide reduction.
However, some of the international entities always condemns the execution of the death penalty in Somaliland and in the wider Somali peninsula. Those international entities consider the death penalty as an unacceptable cruel and inhumane punishment, which fails to provide deterrence to criminal behavior. Actually, all types of punishments , including death penalty are cruel action, on one hand. On the other, philosophically, punishing an offender is intended to achieve one or more of corrective, retributive, or deterrence philosophical and legal objective.
The death penalty is deterrence justice based on that the fear of execution of a murderer will prevent others from committing similar offensives, in the general perspective. In the specific Somali world, execution of death penalty will deter slaughtered victim’s heirs from committing vengeance killing; which can easily escalate into full scale war in a country or across Hon of Africa, where Somali clans sides both sides of the border.
Just before number of years, 5 innocent victims were slain in a tit-for-tat style retaliation killings between two clans in Togdheer region as the consequence of a murder case, in which the offender escaped from arrest. Among those 5 revenge killing victims were district police commander and businessman. Therefore, capital punishment of a murderer is crucial for the overall national security and even the stability of the wider region.
However, soft options are available for solution of a murder case; where all the three justice systems relied by Somalis- Sharia (Islamic jurisprudence), legal courts, and the traditional clan-based adjudication offer to the relatives of slain victim. The first options is forgiving and setting the murderer free without any punishment; and the second option is to receive diya as a blood compensation to be paid by the offender’s clan members. Whilst, the third alternative is death penalty, in which a murderer is to execute by the government or by the victim’s relatives, in the absence of a legal authority. Usually, the relatives of at large murderer lead the hunt down operation to be save from revenge killing, in the first place, and to craft an easy consequence option for their kin, i.e. forgiving or diya optio