Afghan rape gang sentenced to death after national outrage

KABUL - An Afghan judge on Sunday sentenced seven men to death for the gang-rape of four women in a case that has sparked nationwide outrage, with angry protests outside the court and proceedings broadcast live on television.

The seven men, who stood in the dock dressed in brown traditional clothing, were found guilty of kidnapping and attacking the female members of a group that was driving home to Kabul from a wedding.

President Hamid Karzai had earlier called for the men to be hanged, and the death sentences were technically handed down for the crime of armed robbery rather than rape.

In a trial that lasted only a few hours, the court heard that the men, who had obtained police uniforms and were armed with guns, stopped a convoy of cars in the early hours of August 23.

They dragged the four women out of the vehicles, robbed them, beat them up and then raped them. One of the women was reported to be pregnant.

"We went to Paghman with our families," one victim, dressed in a burqa, told the packed courtroom.

"On the way back, they took us. One of them put his gun on my head, the other one took all our jewellery, and the rest started what you already know."

As noisy demonstrators outside the court demanded the death penalty, applause erupted inside after Kabul police chief Zahir Zahir called for the men to be hanged.

"We want them to be hanged in public, so that it will be a lesson for others," he said.

"We arrested them with police uniforms. They confessed to their crime within two hours of their arrest." The judge said the seven had the right to appeal against their sentences.

Women's rights under threat?

Women's rights have been central to the multi-billion-dollar international development effort in Afghanistan since the end of the Taliban regime in 2001.

Under the Taliban's harsh version of Sunni Islamic law, women were forced to wear the all-covering burqa, banned from jobs, and from even leaving the house without a male chaperone.

Rape and violence against women and girls was rife, according to Amnesty International, which says that Afghan women are still routinely discriminated against, abused and persecuted.

The Taliban, who launched a resilient insurgency after being ousted, threaten a resurgence as US-led NATO combat troops withdraw from the country later this year.

Despite 13 years of fighting, foreign forces have failed to quash the Taliban, who have gained ground in a series of recent offensives.

The gang-rape unleashed a wave of public reaction via the media and the Internet, echoing recent similar crimes in India including the fatal attack on a student on a bus in New Delhi in 2012 that provoked headlines worldwide.

Last week the US embassy in Kabul released a statement, condemning "the brutal robbery, beating, and rape" and calling for Afghan authorities to bring the perpetrators to justice.

President Karzai's personal intervention came as he waits to step down after ruling Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban.

The June 14 election to choose his successor has become engulfed in a prolonged dispute over fraud, with both of the two candidates claiming victory.

The United Nations has expressed fears the political stand-off could trigger a spiral of instability and a return to the lawless chaos of the 1990s civil war that allowed the Taliban to rise to power.