Nairobi/Mogadishu - A Somali judge who sentenced four men with links to Islamist insurgent group al-Shabaab to jail terms has been shot dead in the semi-autonomous Puntland region, local media reports said on Thursday.

Radio Garowe said armed and masked men shot Sheikh Mohamed Abdi Aware in Bosasso, the capital of Puntland, as he left a mosque on Wednesday night.

Aware - who was known for sentencing militants and pirates terrorising international shipping off the coast of Somalia - was shot just days after jailing four al-Shabaab members.

Al-Shabaab is fighting the weak Western-backed Somali government in an insurgency that has claimed almost 20 000 lives since early 2007.
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