Afghan accused of murdering foreign journalists

An Afghan man has been charged with the murder of four foreign journalists during the closing days of the Taliban regime.

The journalists were travelling in a convoy from the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad to Kabul when a group of armed men dragged them from their cars and shot them dead in November 2001.

The victims were Australian television cameraman Harry Burton and Afghan photographer Azizullah Haidari of the Reuters news agency, Maria Grazia Cutuli of the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera and Julio Fuentes of the Spanish daily El Mundo.

Reza Khan is is facing charges including murder, rape and highway robbery, said General Abdul Fatah, a prosecutor attached to the Afghan intelligence service.

Fatah said Khan had confessed to being one of 11 people who stopped several vehicles along the road early that morning and to personally killing one of the foreign men and raping Cutuli. The reporters’ vehicles were then looted.

“Reza said they got their orders from Maulawi Latif, a Taliban guy,” Fatah said. “He confessed all these details without a beating.”

He said the defendant will appear in court soon for a closed-door trial, and that he could be hanged if found guilty. It was unclear if Reza will have access to a lawyer under Afghanistan’s rudimentary legal system.

Khan is also accused of cutting off the noses and ears of Afghans in a bus stopped by the group “because they had only short beards,” Fatah said.

“He also confessed to killing his wife in Pakistan,” Fatah said.