Sunday, May 9, 2004
Two foreigners stoned to death in Afghanistan
Reuters Kabul, May 9
Two foreign nationals, one of them Swiss, have been stoned to death in the Afghan capital, government officials said on Sunday.
Bodies of the men were discovered in Baghe Chilstone, an ancient garden not far from the city's centre, Interior Ministry spokesman Lufullah Mashal, told Reuters.
"Locals informed the police and showed them the bodies and an investigation is going on as to who stoned these to death, and why," Mashal said. "One of them holds a Swiss passport and the nationality of the other is not known."
Both had come from neighbouring Pakistan nine days ago, said Khalil Aminzada, deputy chief of Kabul police.
He said the two were wearing local shalwar (baggy trousers) and long shirts as well as woollen hats. The two were pelted last night with bricks and stones and their bodies were being examined by local forensic experts, he added.
A local official at the Swiss embassy in Kabul said Swiss diplomats were informed about the deaths and were in the process of finding more details from the authorities.
There was no immediate comment from the officials on the cause of the killing.
Stoning to death is a punishment proposed by Islam for adulterers. The practice was publicly administered by the ousted Taliban who ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 when the US-led military overthrew the radical regime.
Remnants of ousted Taliban are active in southern and easterns parts of Afghanistan where more than 700 people including aid workers, civilians, government and US-led troops and militants have been killed since last August.
The deaths, mostly blamed on the militants, also include several attacks on the NATO-led foreign peacekeepers in Kabul.
© Hindustan Times Ltd. 2004.