January 21, 2021
The Taliban warned the Afghan government of severe comeback if any of its members cutting jails are killed, in a statement on Thursday. The group stated that peace process and killings can’t move hand in hand.
A Taliban spokesman has declared that all the 5,000 Taliban prisoners released lately from the Afghan government jails under the US-Taliban peace agreement had been sentenced to death by the Afghan courts, cautioning that any exploitation of the remaining prisoners will pose grave harms to the peace process.
Meanwhile, the officials from Directorate of Prisons are of the view that only about 1,000 prisoners have been sentenced to death by the courts in Afghanistan.
The Directorate of Prisons however avoided telling the exact figures about the political prisoners.
Few days earlier, Afghanistan’s First Vice President Amrullah Saleh urged the Afghan legal and judicial system to order death punishments for the arrested Taliban members to help mend the security situations.
But, a Taliban spokesman holds the stance that all those 5,000 Taliban members released by the government in recent times were sentenced to death and currently there are no Taliban members on death row.
“The Taliban’s killing machine was not stopped despite the release of over 5,000 prisoners from the jails as goodwill gestures, the call for execution of these prisoners is totally legitimate,” said Mohammad Baqir Kazimi, member of Saleh’s office.
“The executive body has no role to play in decision making, this is the responsibility of the legal system, and they have their own calculations about the crimes committed and about the punishments, added Mirza Mohammad Yarmand, a military analyst.
Moreover, the Office of the first Vice President clarified that the families of the victims of the violent incidents launched by the Taliban groups, demand the execution of these Taliban-affiliated prisoners.
This comes a day after Waheed Omar, President Ghani’s senior adviser for public and strategic affairs statement that the Afghan Government is not in favor of releasing more Taliban prisoners, as the violence has increased as a consequence of this step.
© Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) and Afghan Studies Center (ASC), Islamabad.
