A court has dismissed the case against an Afghan man facing possible execution for converting from Islam to Christianity, officials said, paving the way for his release this week.
The move eased pressure from the West but raised the problem of protecting Abdul Rahman after his release, because Islamic clerics have called for him to be killed.
One official said freedom might come as soon as yesterday for Rahman, who became a Christian in the 1990s while working for an aid group in neighboring Pakistan.
Muslim extremists, who have demanded death for Rahman as an apostate for rejecting Islam, warned the decision would touch off protests across this religiously conservative country. Some clerics previously vowed to incite Afghans to kill Rahman if he was let go.
Rahman was moved to Kabul's notorious high-security Policharki prison on Friday after inmates at a jail in central Kabul threatened him, Policharki's warden, General Shahmir Amirpur, said.
Authorities have barred journalists from seeing Rahman. But on Sunday, officials gave reporters an exclusive tour of Policharki, which houses some 2,000 inmates, including about 350 Taliban and al-Qaeda militants.
Amirpur said Rahman had been asking guards for a Bible but they had none to give him.
"He looks very calm. But he keeps saying he is hearing voices," Amirpur said.
Rahman was in solitary confinement in a tiny concrete cell next to a senior prison guard's office. Reporters were shown the cell door, but barred from speaking with or otherwise communicating with him.
A senior guard said inmates and many guards had not been told of Rahman's identity because of fears they might attack him.
But Amirpur vouched for the prisoner's safety. "We are watching him constantly. This is a very sensitive case so he needs high security."
The case set off an outcry in the US and other nations that helped oust the hard-line Taliban regime in late 2001 and provide aid and military support for Afghan President Hamid Karzai. US President George W. Bush and others insisted Afghanistan protect personal beliefs.
A Supreme Court spokesman, Abdul Wakil Omeri, said the case had been dismissed because of "problems with the prosecutors' evidence." He said several of Rahman's relatives testified he is mentally unstable and prosecutors have to "decide if he is mentally fit to stand trial."
Another Afghan official closely involved with the case told the press that the court ruled there was insufficient evidence and returned the case to prosecutors for further investigation. But he said Rahman would be released in the meantime.
"The court dismissed today the case against Abdul Rahman for a lack of information and a lot of legal gaps in the case," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly comment on the case.
"The decision about his release will be taken possibly [yesterday]," the official added. "They don't have to keep him in jail while the attorney general is looking into the case."
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who said she had not received official confirmation from Afghan authorities, told Fox News the announcement was "a very good step forward."
But about 700 Muslim clerics and others gathered in central Mazar-e-Sharif, chanting "Death to Bush" and other anti-Western slogans, a day after a court announced it had dropped its case against Rahman, police commander Nasruddin Hamdrad said.
Security forces surrounded the demonstrators but did not intervene.
The religious leaders have called for protests across the country against both the government and the West, which had pressured Karzai's administration to drop the case.
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
Former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a Peruvian presidential hopeful, gathered hundreds of supporters in Lima on Tuesday and gave authorities 24 hours to annul the first round of the country’s election over allegations of fraud. Lopez Aliaga is locked in a tight three-way race with two other candidates for second place in Sunday’s vote. The election runner-up wins a ticket to June’s presidential run-off against front-runner Keiko Fujimori. “I am giving them 24 hours to declare this electoral fraud null and void,” said Lopez Aliaga, surrounded by a crowd of several hundred supporters. “If it is not declared null and void tomorrow,
PAPAL RETORT: Pope Leo told reporters that he has ‘no fear, neither of the Trump administration nor speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel’ US President Donald Trump has feuded with Pope Leo XIV over the Iran conflict — setting off an unholy row that could have serious political implications for the Republican leader back in the US. Trump has drawn barbs even from some allies over the attacks on the US-born pontiff, who has criticized the Trump administration over its immigration crackdown, the intervention in Venezuela and the Iran war. The president risks alienating the religious right in November’s crucial US midterm elections. So far the unprecedented clash between the leader of the most powerful military on Earth and the head of the world’s 1.4 billion
A 16-year-old boy has been charged with murder and aggravated sexual abuse in Florida in the death of his 18-year-old stepsister on a Carnival Cruise ship, the US Department of Justice said on Monday. Timothy Hudson was initially charged in February and subsequently indicted on March 10, but the breadth of the case was not known until a seal was lifted on Friday last week, weeks after US District Judge Beth Bloom in Miami said that he would be prosecuted as an adult at the request of the government. Anna Kepner had been traveling on the Carnival Horizon ship in November last
RSS