/ Source: The Associated Press
A Somali Islamic court has amputated the hands of two men accused of theft and lashed another accused of rape, an official said Wednesday.
Sheik Ali Mohamud Rage, a spokesman for the al-Shabab militia, said the men had admitted the charges against them.
An eyewitness said that kitchen knives were used to amputate a hand off each of the screaming men on a large table. He declined to be named for fear of reprisals.
Wednesday's punishment by courts connected to a powerful insurgent group shows the shaky U.N.-backed government's inability to control even Somalia's capital city of Mogadishu.
Such strict punishments are historically unusual in Somalia and analysts say they are partly a reaction to the chaos of the civil war.