Great read. My favorite part;
For a start, there was virtually no attempt to create even the illusion of due process.
The Attorney General filed charges with the Banaadir regional court, which has no jurisdiction to try cases involving federal crimes – crimes against the state – but which proved conveniently amenable to guidance from the presidency.
Indictments were announced by press release and no summons were issued. When Sahan’s lawyer presented himself at the first hearing, he was asked to leave on the grounds that the court had already appointed defence counsel and his presence would only complicate things. The charges proffered by the prosecution alleged espionage and the revelation of state secrets, but in public the government insisted that Sahan published only lies – an assertion entirely at odds with the charge of revealing national secrets. Were we guilty of telling the truth (and too much of it) or lying? The government didn’t seem able to make up its mind. Either way,
no evidence was presented in support of the charges, no witnesses were put forward, and no one ever bothered to record statements from the defendants. It was, in the truest sense of the term, a “show trial”.