Afghan MPs to Probe Convert’s Release, Taleban Call for Jihad

as-salaam alaykum

Afghan MPs to Probe Convert’s Release, Taleban Call for Jihad
Agence France Presse

KABUL, 31 March 2006 — Afghan lawmakers vowed yesterday to investigate whether the judiciary violated Islamic law by freeing a man facing execution for becoming a Christian, as the Taleban insurgents called for “jihad” over the case.

Abdul Rahman, 41, was secretly whisked off to asylum in Italy Wednesday after being released from prison where he had been awaiting trial for apostasy.

His case had provoked an outcry from the countries that helped to topple the Taleban regime in 2001 and on whom Kabul relies to quell a Taleban-led insurgency and rebuild from nearly 30 years of war.

The Parliament denounced the “interference” in a heated debate Wednesday and said Rahman should not be allowed to “escape.”

Parliamentarians said yesterday they would go ahead with an inquiry into the judiciary’s decision to free Rahman, even though he was out of the country.

The Supreme Court suspended the trial at the weekend after testimony from his relatives suggesting Rahman was not mentally fit to stand trial.

Legislator Haji Ahmad Farid, a conservative cleric, said the judge and state prosecutors involved would be summoned to Parliament to determine if they had made a “sound decision or of it was made under pressure.”

Judge Ansarullah Mawlawizada defended his decision to release Rahman, saying the convert had himself told the court he heard voices “from the sky, from heaven.”

“The court conducted its work independently, without any pressure from government or anyone,” he said.

The Taleban said meanwhile the incident showed the government of President Hamid Karzai was a “puppet” to foreign powers.

“Apostate Abdul Rahman’s release makes it clear that Afghanistan’s judiciary is not independent and its decisions are in hands of foreigners,” said Taleban spokesman Mohammed Hanif.

“There are no longer judges or mullahs in Kabul — they are all sell-outs who cheat the nation under the name of the Islamic judiciary,” the statement said.

The Taleban said believers in Islam should respond by joining their insurgency.

“We ask our Muslim brothers to take their position against this offense by the enemies of Islam and to act, based on their responsibility to their religion and God, and to start jihad against Karzai’s administration,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, seven people were killed in Afghanistan and a suicide bomber targeting foreign troops wounded up to eight others, officials said yesterday, in the latest indication that the Taleban appeared to be intensifying its insurgency.

Suspected Taleban militants ambushed a district governor in Laghman province near the capital Kabul, killing him, a colleague and two bodyguards, police said.

In the southern city of Kandahar a suicide attacker exploded his car close to two armored vehicles in a convoy of Romanian and Canadian soldiers, the US-led military coalition said.

The Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team, run by foreign troops, said that seven bystanders including one woman and two children had been injured in the ensuing blast. A coalition spokesman said one of its soldiers and four bystanders had been injured.

wa-salaam alaykum