The Taliban on Wednesday sentenced an alleged assassin to death in the first public execution carried out in Afghanistan since the Islamist group returned to power.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the man was shot three times by the father of his alleged victim at an execution attended by senior Taliban officials in the southwestern province of Farah. The man had been accused of stabbing the victim to death in 2017 and stealing a cell phone and a bicycle.
The news comes just weeks after the Taliban ordered judges to fully enforce their interpretation of Sharia law, including public executions, amputations and flogging – a move that has raised fears of a further deterioration of human rights in the impoverished country.
It is the first public execution since Kabul fell to the Taliban following the withdrawal of US forces from the country in August 2021. During the previous period of Taliban rule, from 1996 to 2001, public executions were common, as were other punishments. violent.
According to the Taliban, the accused admitted to the murder and the case was tried by three different courts. Afghan Supreme Leader Alaiqadar Amirul Momineen gave final approval for the execution, the statement said.
The victim’s mother told state media agency RTA Pashto that the family had refused several pardons from the alleged killer.
“We said that if we pardoned him and he was released, he would go out and kill someone else’s child. We wanted his punishment to be death so it could be a lesson for others like him,” she said.
Among the senior Taliban officials present at the execution were the Acting Chief Justice, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Acting Interior Minister and the Deputy Governor of Farah Province.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said in a Twitter post that it “strongly opposes the death penalty in all circumstances and calls on the de facto authorities to establish an immediate moratorium with a view to the abolition of the death penalty.”
Kaheld Abou El Fadl, professor of Islamic Law at UCLA and one of the world’s leading authorities on Sharia law, told CNN in November that, within the 1,400-year-old tradition of Shariah, punishments such as public executions have historically been rarely implemented because most Islamic jurists have interpreted the law differently than the Taliban.
After seizing power last August, the Taliban initially tried to project a more moderate image to gain international support. However, since then, it has curtailed rights and freedoms.
Women in Afghanistan are no longer able to work in most sectors and need a male tutor for long-distance travel, while girls have been barred from returning to secondary school. Women were also barred from entering the parks.
Source: CNN Brasil
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