Viscount Maugham.:-

In this case the appellants were charged in the Protectorate Court of the Somaliland Protectorate that on or about the first week in June 1941, at Harawati Balleh near Bohadle in the District of Burao, Somaliland, each of them did participate in a criminal act, namely intentionally causing the death of Corporal Nur Musa done by several persons in furtherance of the common intention of all and thereby committed the offence of murder punishable under Ss. 34 and 302, Penal Code, which applies in the Protectorate. The trouble in this case seems to have originated shortly after the Italian forces had been driven out of British Somali land by His Majesty's forces in the year 1941 and was caused partly at least by the circumstance that rifles had been distributed by the Government to a number of the inhabitants to enable them to resist or to protect themselves against the Italians. Rifles were in these circumstances distributed to certain illaloes or native watchmen. In June 1941, one of the rifles so issued was missing, and it was thought to have come into the possession of a sub-tribe of the Dolbahanta known as the Adan Hagar, to whom also some rifles had been distrib