THE father of a man murdered in a "reckless and dangerous" shooting said he was relieved to know the killers had been brought to justice after they were jailed for life.
Mohammed Abdi, 25, was killed in a quiet street in the Willowbrae area of Edinburgh last year.
Cadil Huseen, 23, Mohamud Mohamud, 30, and Hussein Mohamed Ali, 26, were handed life sentences yesterday after they had pleaded guilty to murder, and told they must serve 25 years before applying for parole.
In the early hours of May 26 2013, the three were in a car going from Glasgow to Edinburgh when they started chasing the victim and three others in a Ford Focus.
The cars stopped and the Focus was shot at with a sub-machine gun and a revolver, killing Mr Abdi. Ali fled to Kenya but returned to the UK voluntarily after extradition proceedings began.
The case went to trial but all three pleaded guilty on the sixteenth day of evidence. Passing sentence at the High Court in Glasgow, Judge Lord Turnbull said they were involved in a "large-scale and highly profitable drug supply network" in the capital.
"The extent to which this lifestyle had an utterly corrupting effect is clear from the evidence of the escalating conflict between your group and the rival group of drug dealers of which Mohammed Abdi was part," the judge said.
He said to protect the illicit business the three were ready to engage in "violence of an extreme nature."
He added: "A large group of your gang members and associates gathered together with the explicit intention of finding and attacking Mohammed Abdi and the other members of his group, in order to eliminate the competition."
Omar Abdi, the victim's father, said: "Nothing will bring my son back but I am relieved to know the persons who committed this terrible crime will no longer be able to hurt anyone again, and I hope no other family will suffer as we have."
He thanked communities across Edinburgh who helped the police investigation and added: "I was heartened when I saw the number of cards and flowers that were laid where my son died."
Detective Chief Superintendent Gary Flannigan said detectives combined CCTV and telecoms information from across the UK to crack the case. "Scene examiners and scientists did fantastic work deconstructing the vehicles involved in the shooting and recovering vital evidence," he said.
John Dunn, procurator fiscal for the east of Scotland, said: "There can be few crimes quite as reckless and dangerous as the repeated discharge of a firearm in a populous area."
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