Kabul Bank attackers sentenced to death

KABUL): The man who attacked the Jalalabad branch of Kabul Bank last February was sentenced to hang along with one of his accomplices by the highest court in the land, officials said on Tuesday.

Zar Ajam from North Waziristan in Pakistan entered the bank on February 19, 2011 wearing a police uniform, and opened fire on customers and employees. One by one, he killed a total of 40 people and injured more than 90 others. When he was detained, Ajam said that he enjoyed killing his victims.

His accomplice, Matiullah was also sentenced to death for facilitating the murders, while a third defendant, Allah Dad, was sentenced to 20 years in jail, Head of the Court Department at the Supreme Court Abdul Malik Kamawi told Pajhwok Afghan News.

The primary court issued its guilty verdicts on May 2, 2011, and the appellant court sentenced them to death on May 18. The Supreme Court sentenced two of the defendants to death and the third to 20 years in jail on May 29, 2011.

President Karzai and the people of Nangarhar had demanded that the Supreme Court give the attackers harsh sentences.

“Such people should not be killed in a secret place, like Osama’s death, but they should be slaughtered in a public square,” a shopkeeper of Jalalabad City near the scene of the attack, Noor Khitab, said.

If the government punished all the people who had been seized on charges of suicide attacks, there would be security in the country, he said.

Zar Ajam had told reporters that he was trained for a suicide attack by Maulvi in North Waziristan.

“I was told that killing every person in Kabul Bank is legal (halal) for you”, he had said.

The bomber was taken to Nangarhar by an Afghan named Mohammad Hasham and stayed for three days in a house belonging to Matiullah’s family on the outskirts of Jalalabad City. He visited Kabul Bank a day before the attack with the help of another assistance, Mahmud.

myn/at