A regional court sitting in Garowe has acquitted six men of the rape and murder charges they were facing.
On Thursday, the Garowe court took the decision after the prosecution failed to prove that the men were guilty of the charges filed against them.
The prosecution had accused them of raping and murdering a woman in the city last year.
In 2019, Hodan Shanlayste was found brutally murdered after she had been raped. The prosecution believes that she was suffocated with a plastic bag.
The Garowe court called the evidence presented by the prosecution “circumstantial.”
Consequently, the presiding judge said he had no option but to “give the accused the benefit of doubt” since the prosecution had failed to establish that they committed the actual crimes.
Early this year, two men were executed in Puntland for the rape and murder of Aisha Aden, a 12-year old girl.
A third person accused of Aden’s murder was spared the hangman’s noose after his family and that of the 12-year old girl reached a “blood money agreement,” which is common in Somalia.