Thursday October 4, 5:21 PMLawyer sees light Afghan sentence for Christians
From http://in.news.yahoo.com/011004/64/160yl.html ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - An Afghan court hearing the trial of eight foreign aid workers on charges of spreading Christianity was expected to pass a light sentence on the basis of compassion, their Pakistani lawyer said on Thursday. "In this matter, compassion will play a very big part and hopefully they will get a small sentence, if any," Atif Ali Khan, lawyer for the eight detained foreign aid workers, told CNN in an interview from Kabul. Asked when the trial would resume, the lawyer said: "As soon as we are prepared with an answer, we should submit that, tentatively we are thinking to do that on Sunday." The aid workers -- two Americans, two Australians and four Germans -- have been detained by the ruling Taliban since early August, accused of trying to spread Christianity in Afghanistan. Their 16 Afghan colleagues of the German-based Shelter Now International (SNI) are also in detention but their fate is not known. Khan said there was no specific punishment prescribed under Islamic law for Christian proselytising and the sentence depended largely on the judge. According to Khan, the chief justice of the Taliban Supreme Court had said the trial would be open to the parents of the detainees, foreign diplomats and journalists. Khan told CNN that American detainee Heather Mercer was being treated by a doctor because she was suffering from anxiety, especially amid fears of U.S. strikes on Afghanistan following the deadly attacks in New York and Washington on September 11. The United States has demanded that the Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden, whom Washington regards as the prime suspect in the attacks on New York and Washington that left nearly 6,000 dead and missing. Diplomats from Germany, the United States and Australia, as well as some relatives of the U.S. prisoners, have visited the detainees in the capital, Kabul, but left Afghanistan last month in the wake of the attacks. The foreign detainees have been identified as Australians Peter Bunch and Diana Thomas, Americans Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer, and Germans Georg Taubmann, Katrin Jelinek, Margrit Stebner and Silke Durrkopf. Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited. Copyright © 2001 Yahoo! Inc. |
