KABUL (Reuters) – Afghanistan’s administration said on Wednesday it had carried out the first public execution of a death row inmate since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021.
The convict had been convicted of the stabbing murder of another man in 2017, Taliban spokesman Zabihoullah Moujahid said.
He was executed by the victim’s father, who shot him three times, he said in a later statement.
Several senior Taliban officials attended the execution, Zabihoullah Mujahid said, including Interior Minister Sirajouddine Haqqani and Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Ghani Baradar.
In Paris, the French Foreign Ministry condemned this public execution, citing an “odious” decision.
The Afghan Supreme Court had previously announced that several men and women accused of acts such as theft or adultery had suffered public floggings in recent weeks.
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations had called in November on the Afghan authorities to put an end without delay to the public floggings.
According to a statement from the Afghan Supreme Court, the supreme leader of the Taliban received judges last month and told them that they must impose sentences in accordance with Sharia, Islamic law.
Floggings and stonings were widespread in Afghanistan during the period 1996-2001, when the Taliban had already held power in Kabul. They then became rare and were condemned by successive governments until 2021, even if the death penalty remained in force.
(Report Mohammad Yunus Yawar, French version Marc Angrand, edited by Kate Entringer)
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