'Adulterous' woman stoned

2005-04-29 18:32

Kabul - Police have arrested six people for killing an Afghan woman suspected of adultery, reportedly by stoning her to death in one of the first cases of its kind since the Taliban fell, an official said on Friday.

The arrests were made on Wednesday after the interior ministry sent a delegation to a remote village in northeastern Badakhshan province to probe the incident which occurred last Friday, ministry spokesperson Lutfullah Mashal said.

"Six people, including the father of the victim and a local mullah and four others who were involved in the killing have been arrested," Mashal told reporters.

Mashal said that the men who encouraged the killing would be brought to the capital Kabul for trial later this week.

The provincial police chief said last week that he had received reports that the woman was stoned to death for adultery on the orders of the religious leader over suspicions she had cheated on her husband.

Mashal said that according to initial reports by the delegation the woman was in fact beaten mercilessly by her relatives before being shot dead, but added that its investigations were ongoing.

The man who allegedly had relations with the victim - and who was also lashed by order of the mullah - was among those arrested, Mashal added.

The victim's husband had recently returned from Iran after five years and the dead woman had asked for a separation on the grounds that her husband could not support her, according to local officials and rights group.

Under the Taliban regime from 1996 to 2001, women were regularly stoned to death for adultery but Afghanistan is now trying to deal with such cases through its fledgling legal system.

But strict versions of Islamic law continue to be practised in areas where the central government has less control more than three years after the ouster of the fundamentalist regime.

- AFP