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Handing Taliban Ministers Over to U.S. Unacceptable
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| Will Taliban ministers end up in U.S. jails? |
KABUL, Jan. 9 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - An Afghan interior ministry official ruled out Wednesday, January 9, the handing over to the United States of three former Taliban ministers, who surrendered in December 2001, saying it was "not acceptable" for the Afghan people.
Khalid Pashtoon, spokesman for Kandahar Governor, Gul Agha, said the three ministers, who handed themselves in on Tuesday January 8, had been allowed to return to their homes, although they would remain under surveillance.
"Of course we treat them just like any other human beings and we let them go back home," Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported Pashtoon as saying. "They were very happy. We told them that the government of Kandahar had no charges against them."
He said that members of the Taliban, who gave themselves up, would be granted amnesty unless specific accusations were made against them.
"These Taliban who surrendered are not criminals up until the moment an Afghan accuses them of a crime," he said.
This came as the United States said it expected top Taliban leaders, captured by the Northern Alliance, to be handed over to Washington.
The U.S. comments followed a decision by the new interim government in Kabul to release several prisoners, who were senior figures in the defeated Taliban regime.
The United States believes the former ministers, who handed themselves in to the interim government, could hold vital clues as to the whereabouts of Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, and Osama bin Laden, reported BBC’s online news service.
Former Taliban Justice Minister, Mullah Nuruddin Turabi - known to be close to Mullah Omar, former Defense Minister, Mullah Ubaidullah, and Industry Minister, Mullah Saadudin, have all been allowed to return to their homes, according to official sources from the interim government.
The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, said, however, two of the ministers were senior enough to have intelligence information that might help prevent future operations by Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network.
"Obviously, individuals of that stature in the Taliban leadership are of great interest to the United States," he told a Pentagon briefing, "and we would expect that they would be turned over, absolutely."
Meanwhile, a Fatwa (Islamic Ruling) has been issued, prohibiting the handing over of former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, or any other senior Taliban official.
Dr. Anwar Dabbour, professor of Islamic Shari’ah at Cairo University and Dr. Ahmad Abul-Wafa, professor of international law; Faculty of Law, Cairo University, have both agreed on prohibiting the handing over, both from an Islamic point of view as well as the rules of international law.
“It is prohibited to hand over a Muslim prisoner of war to non-Muslims as this involves casting off a Muslim and subjecting him to the control of a non-Muslim; such act typically represents letting a Muslim down," the Fatwa read.
“Besides, it also acts as a flagrant violation of international law to hand over ambassadors, for this runs counter to the law of international diplomacy through which ambassadors enjoy immunity granted to them by international law.
"This immunity continues to be in force and never ceases, even after the demise of the regime they are working for, in which case such an ambassador should be given a period to arrange his own affairs and decides whether to be back home or seek political asylum in a third state.”
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