Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, cults, ghosts, myths, strange facts or just plain weird, weird goings-on.

This week: Weird Goings-On

The death sentence is always a gigantic magnet for controversy. The process – in most people's minds – is usually carried out by way of lethal injection, electrocution, or poisonous gassing. This is far from the case in a recent Somali case. There, a killer was recently found guilty and sentenced to death by multiple stabbing – the same way he committed his crime. As if that's not rough enough, the executioner was the very angry 16-year-old son of the murdered man.

Omar Hussein stabbed and killed Sheik Osman Moallim in a dispute over the education of Moallim's 16-year-old child. It happened in the country of Somalia, where both the central government and the court system are very new. The country had been under the control of various warlords until pretty recently.

In fact, Omar Hussein is the first man to be sentenced to death in the country in years – possibly ever. The method of that death being to be killed the same way he killed. 

The executioner, as we've already stated, was the son of the man whom he'd murdered. Hussein was tied to a stake, a sack was placed over his head, and the boy stabbed him multiple times in the head, chest and throat until he was dead. As he was being executed, Hussein yelled: "There is no God but Allah!"

The controversial new court system is said to have reduced all manner of crime. Despite this, it is not fully sanctioned by all the country's residents. Some of those who'd ruled in the previous lawlessness accuse the courts of being linked to al-Qaeda. Relatives of the executed man complain that the trial and execution were pushed along far too quickly.

Rushed or not rushed, the 16-year-old boy who carried out the sentence said: "I am happy now because I killed the man who killed my father."

Read more:

Somali boy executes dad's killer – BBC

[story by Shawn Lindseth]