Taliban puts aid workers on trial for their lives

The Sunday Times (U.K.) ^ | 09/09/2001 | Peter Conradi

[Pokey78]

EIGHT western aid workers who face a possible death sentence for preaching Christianity appeared for the first time in a packed Kabul courtroom yesterday to protest their innocence.

The accused - two Americans, two Australians and four Germans - looked exhausted as heavily armed soldiers led them before a bank of bearded, white-turbaned judges.

One of the six women wore the head-to-toe burqa that Afghan women have to wear in public. The others covered their heads with veils.

It was the first time any of the eight, who worked for the German-based Christian relief agency Shelter Now International, had been seen in public since they were arrested with 16 Afghan staff five weeks ago.

Addressing the court, Georg Taubmann, Shelter Now's Afghanistan director, said he was shocked by claims he and his colleagues had been trying to spread Christianity.

Under the law of the Taliban, the country's fundamentalist rulers, the punishment for any Afghan Muslim who converts to another religion or preaches it is death. The Taliban has issued an edict calling for foreigners caught proselytising to be jailed and expelled. But Noor Mohammad Saqib, the chief justice, said last week: "If the crime is worthy of hanging, they will be hanged."

Taubmann insisted in court that he and his colleagues had never converted anybody. "During the investigation we were accused of many things that were not true," he said.

Turning to Saqib, he declared: "We have never been informed of the charges against us or why we have been detained. What have we done? Why haven't we been given access to the outside world? We haven't been allowed to get in touch with our families."

One of the six women complained that she could not understand an Afghan-language form she had been asked to complete. "My future may depend on what I write on this piece of paper, but I can't read it," she said. Saqib told her to find an interpreter.

The proceedings, which lasted an hour, were held in the stark office of the chief justice, its walls adorned with verses from the Koran, swords and a leather strap used by the Taliban for public beatings.

The accused were forbidden to talk to journalists or to any of their relatives who had travelled to Kabul. As Dana Curry, 29, one of the two American women, left the court, she mouthed "I love you" to her mother, who sat behind her. The other American, Heather Mercer, 24, clutched her father's hand for most of the proceedings.

The trial, believed to have begun on Tuesday, has been shrouded in secrecy. The judges sifted through boxes of evidence of alleged proselytising, including Christian literature translated into local languages. The Taliban's religious police claim they confiscated the material from Shelter Now's office in Kabul.

Diplomats who were allowed to attend court said they expected a long trial. The verdict is expected to be presented to Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban's one-eyed leader, for a final decision.