Two men convicted of murder were executed publicly this Thursday in a football stadium in Afghanistan. The two were shot several times in the back at a stadium in the eastern city of Ghazni, where thousands of men gathered to watch the execution.
“These two people were convicted of murder (…) after a two-year trial in the courts of this country. The (execution) order has been signed,” the country’s supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, told the crowd, which stopped by Supreme Court Justice Atiqullah Darwish.
Present in the stadium, The victims’ families refused to pardon the two prisoners. a possibility considered in Islamic law. The Afghan government did not provide any information about the convicts or their crimes. Public executions were common under the first Taliban regime between 1996 and 2001. The condemned were often executed by shooting or stoning, after the crimes.
Since the Taliban came to power in Kabul in August 2021, there have been two further executions, both for murder. The previous incident occurred in June in Laghman province in the east. A man convicted of murdering five people was shot dead on the grounds of a mosque in front of around 2,000 people. The authorities also carried out public floggings for other crimes, such as theft, adultery and alcohol consumption.
dmr