Telegraph.co.uk  |  July 8 2012

22-Year-Old Accused Of Adultery Executed In Afghanistan

The Afghan government has condemned the Taliban public execution of a young woman accused of adultery after harrowing mobile phone footage of her death emerged.

By Ben Farmer, Kabul and agencies

A grab from the video purporting to show the public execution of a 22 year old woman for adultery.  Photo: AFP/GETTY

The film shows the woman being riddled with bullets at close range, in front of a cheering crowd of men.

Public executions or amputations were common during the Taliban's regime in the 1990s. In recent years footage and accounts of similar punishments have emerged from rural areas where the militants' retain influence and mete out their own justice.

Police officials said the video is believed to have been shot last week, in a province north of the capital which has seen security slide sharply in the past two years.

Hamid Karzai's palace condemned the killing as "an un-Islamic and inhuman action by those professional killers and has ordered the Parwan police to find the culprits and bring them to justice".

The execution took place in Shinwari district of Parwan, about an hour's drive from the Afghan capital of Kabul.

Onlookers can be heard declaring the woman, reportedly a 22-year-old called Najiba, had committed adultery and must die.

A man is seen reading verses from the Koran condemning adultery, before saying: “We cannot forgive her, God tells us to finish her.

Juma Khan, her husband, has the right to kill her,” according to the AFP news agency.

As the young woman squats, huddled in a burka facing away from the camera, a man walks up behind her to within a few feet and opens fire with his assault rifle.

The first two shots miss her, but on the third she collapses and he continues to fire into her motionless body. A crowd of around 100, looking on from a hill, cheer her death, shouting “Long live Islam”, “Long live Mujahideen (holy warriors)”.

Najiba had been married to one Taliban member and was accused of adultery with a Taliban commander, according to Roshna Khalid, Parwan’s provincial spokesman.

“Within one hour they decided that she was guilty and sentenced her to death. They shot her in front of villagers in her village,” she told the agency.

The American embassy in Kabul joined in condemning what it called a “heinous crime”.

A statement said: “This cold-blooded murder, carried out in front of a crowd and recorded on video, is an unambiguous reminder to the Afghan people and the international community of the brutality of the Taliban.” The Afghanistan Human Rights Commission also expressed outrage.

Mohammad Musa Mahmodi, executive director, said: “We condemn any killings done without proper trial. It is un-Islamic and against any human rights values.”

Two years ago similar footage emerged from Kunduz province of a couple being stoned to death as punishment for adultery.

The couple had eloped to Pakistan together before being tricked into returning.

Also in 2010, police accounts emerged of a pregnant widow being sentenced to death for an illicit affair in the northern province of Badghis.

Bibi Sanubar was held captive, beaten in front of a crowd before she was shot three times in the head by an insurgent commander in the Qadis district.

Original article here.