KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Ending a three-year moratorium on the death penalty, Afghanistan executed 15 prisoners by gunfire, including a man convicted of killing three foreign journalists during the U.S.-led invasion, the prisons chief announced Monday.
The United Nations protested the executions, which could complicate the missions of some NATO nations.
The mass execution took place Sunday evening according to Afghan law. The crimes of those executed included murder, kidnapping and armed robbery, but officials said no Taliban or al-Qaeda fighters were among the prisoners.
After the ouster of the Taliban, the new government pledged to the world community it would halt executions, and had carried out only one previously, in 2004.
The 15 deaths could complicate relationships between the government and some NATO countries with military forces in the country. Foreign troops often hand over captured militants to the Afghan government, raising the question of whether countries that do not use the death penalty might stop surrendering prisoners.
Among those executed was Reza Khan, who was convicted of adultery and the murder of one Afghan and three foreign journalists in 2001. The four were pulled from their cars, robbed and shot near the eastern city of Jalalabad while driving toward Kabul six days after the Taliban abandoned the capital under heavy U.S. bombing.
On Monday, a German engineer held by Taliban insurgents since July pleaded in a new video for the Afghan and German governments to make a deal with the militants for his release before winter.
A dimly lit video of Rudolf Blechschmidt shows the German in what appears to be a mud-brick Afghan home. He said he was in poor health but that an Afghan doctor had helped him.
Blechschmidt said he had been recently released into the custody of the International Committee of the Red Cross but was taken back into Taliban custody.
Four Red Cross employees were taken hostage by the Taliban on Sept. 27 while trying to facilitate the German’s release. The four were released in good health two days later.
Blechschmidt is one of two German engineers and five Afghans taken hostage on July 18 in Wardak province in central Afghanistan. The other German was found dead of gunshot wounds on July 21, while one of the Afghans apparently managed to escape.
