 KABUL - An Afghan court has ruled two brothers should be executed for their involvement in the 2001 killing of four journalists, including two from Reuters, a senior judge said on Friday. Zar Jan and Abdul Wahid can both appeal the verdict which was announced at a trial on Thursday, the judge told Reuters. Five other men, accomplices of the pair, were each sentenced to 20 years in jail for other criminal acts such as highway robbery and theft, he said. The brothers have confessed partial involvement in the killing of the journalists at Tangi Abrishum, about 90 km (55 miles) east of Kabul on Nov. 19, 2001, days after US-led forces overthrew the Taleban government, the judge said.
| "We dunnit, and we're glad!" |
The journalists were Australian television cameraman Harry Burton and Afghan photographer Azizullah Haidari, both Reuters employees, Spaniard Julio Fuentes of El Mundo newspaper and Italian Maria Grazia Cutuli of Corriere della Sera newspaper. | Anyone know if a Spanish court is poised to intervene? |
The judge described Zar Jan as the leader of a criminal gang and said he was also wanted on suspicion of armed robbery, kidnapping and other killings. A third suspect in the killing, Reza Khan, who was arrested in November, has also been sentenced to death by two courts. Khan has said the gang had acted on the orders of a Taliban commander. If the final court approves the death sentence for the trio, only President Hamid Karzai can decide their fate, on the basis of Afghanistan’s law. |