Norway: Somalis suspected of helping finance nun's murder

The PST (Norwegian security service) thinks the Norwegian-Somali who's been arrested for financing terrorism had sent money to an extremist leaders suspected of liquidating a 65-year old Italian nun in Somalia in 2006. The 38 year old and the two other Norwegian-Somalis suspected by the PST of giving economic support to terrorism, deny sending money out of Norway for financing terror acts.

The PST thinks, through communication taps and with help of a detailed review of money transactions, that it has evidence the money from the suspects was transferred to three extremist leaders in Somalia. One of the leaders is on a list of operative al-Qaeda terrorists in Somalia which appears on the American foreign department site. According to the site Aden Hashi Ayrow leads a radical faction al-Shabaab and is the military commander of the Council of Islamic Courts (CIC). He had gotten extensive training in the use of explosives and weapons by al-Qaeda in Afghanistan before 2001.

USA holds Hashi Ayrow responsible for executing a Somali peace activist in July 2005, and of being involved in killing the Catholic nun, sister Leonella (Leonella Sgorbati) outside a women's and children's hospital in Mogadishu on Sep. 17, 2006. The BBC reported that the Catholic nun, who had helped children and youth in Africa for 40 years, was shot three times in the back and was killed. Her bodyguard was also killed in the attack. It was speculated that the liquidation came as a result of a statement by Pope Benedikt XVI which provoked Muslims worldwide. The pope cited a Christian leader from the 1400s who had said that everything Muhammad brought the world is evil and inhuman. The pope later regretted this statement and said his statement was misunderstood and did not represent his personal opinion.

The man the PST thinks transferred the money from the suspects in Norway was in the news as recently as November last year. BBC News wrote then that rebel leader sheik Aden Hashi had ordered his forces to attack peacekeepers from the African Union (AU) in their base in the Somali capital. According to the BBC Ayrow called on foreign soldiers to switch sides and to take part in al-Shabaab's war against the peace forces.

According to PST spokesperson Martin Bernsen the investigation involving the three Somali suspects in Norway is ongoing. The Oslo court arrested the 38 head suspect until April 25. PST had also met with several groups of Somalis in Oslo to explain the police's work methods.

Bernsen told Dagsavisen that they have explained that they're aiming their investigation against people and not organizations. They had met with Somali organization G10, where they had mutual understanding, and they had made it clear that they're not investigating the Somali community and not the general rebellion in Somalia.

Source: Dagsavisen (Norwegian)

See also: Sweden: Somali ICU head asks gov't to free terror suspects, Sweden/Norway: Terror financing arrests, Norway: 'We're all terrorists', Norway: Resistance or terrorism?