Afghanistan: 15 prisoners executed

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 here.

The mass execution took place Sunday evening according to Afghan law, which calls for condemned prisoners to be shot to death, said Abdul Salam Ismat, who oversees Afghanistan's prisons.

On Tuesday, Humayun Hamidzada, a presidential spokesman, said Afghanistan will continue with executions of inmates on death row, saying they will be a lesson "for those who are committing such crimes, as murder, kidnapping, adultery and rapes."

The crimes committed by those executed Sunday included murder, kidnapping and armed robbery, but officials said no Taliban or al-Qaida fighters were among the prisoners.

Until it was ousted in late 2001, Afghanistan's hard-line Taliban regime carried out executions in public, many of them at the Kabul stadium. The new government pledged to the international 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 here. 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. Link

db: Our chaps are out there defending the puppet government's right to execute adulterers?