Kerala residents want Sadeq Alamyar sentenced to death

ASADABAD (Pajhwok): The people of eastern Kunar province Tuesday asked the Dutch government to announce death penalty for Sadeq Alamyar, who they alleged ordered killed hundreds of people near Asadabad, the provincial capital, in 1979.

The inhabitants of Kerala village, the scene of the massacre,  said Alamyar was behind the mass killing of 1,260 people on April, 20, 1979 when the corpses were buried in two mass graves through bulldozers.

A statement from Dutch Embassy in Kabul in 1979. Today, the Investigative Judge in The Hague has extended the pretrial detention of Alamyar by 14 days.”

According to the statement, the former commander of commando unit 444 of the Afghan Army, Alamyar was believed to have been involved in killings in and around the Kerala village of Asadabad, on 20 April 1979.

“The Netherlands are committed to not being a safe haven for war criminals and aims to the fight against impunity for international crimes.”

“Moreover, fighting impunity is important to Afghans in Afghanistan and abroad.  Impunity also plays a role in the perpetuation of conflicts. The Netherlands International Crimes Unit is therefore dedicated to tracking and prosecuting war criminals, even if this takes years,” it said.

In the statement, the Dutch Public Prosecutor’s Office  asked  persons who were present in or around Kerala, Dam Kalai or Assadabad on or around 20 April 1979 and who are witnesses of events relating to the investigation should contact  the Netherlands National Police.

“Persons who were present at the time as government troops or government officials may have information that is especially important for the Dutch investigation. These categories of persons are therefore urged to provide such information to the Dutch Police,” the statement added.

The International Crimes Team of the Netherland National Police may be reached by phone at +31-6-51287774, by email at [email protected] and via the Facebook account www.facebook.com/dutcharrestkerala.

“You may also send text messages or a place a ‘missed call’ in which case you will be called back. You may contact us in Dari, Pashtu, English, German or Dutch.”

An eyewitness of the massacre, Khawar, said: “The soldiers of the then regime came to Kerala village and told male members of families that the government wants to talk to them about an issue. They gathered all the people in a ground and took women of the village.”

The ground and the mosque were in vicinity to each other, when the people heard gunshots that killed all the adult male members of the village,” Khawar told Pajhwok Afghan News.

“I saw the people surrounded by soldiers who shot them dead. They shot deal all then dug two ditches through bulldozers and buried them there,” he said.

Khawar said lost his five family members to the incident and later they migrated to Bajaur agency of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan through the border with Kunar province.

Sadeq Alamyar was directly involved in the killings, he said, urging the Dutch government to assassinate him.

Another resident of the area, Maulvi Obaidullah Bahari, said he lost his father, four paternal uncles and 26 maternal uncles, including cousins of his mother, in the mass killings commanded by Sadeq Alamyar during the communist regime.

Government forces laid siege to the Kerala village in the morning and then some soldiers started searching houses at 8am when they pushed men and boys to the ground and women and children to the main mosque, he said, recalling only those males survived who were out of the village.

He said 20 high-ranking officials of the communist regime were involved in the massacre and some of them had died and others lived in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries, he said.

“Each year on 20th of April, the people of the province hold commemoration gatherings to remember the martyrs,” he said, asking the Afghan government and human rights organizations to convict the perpetrators of the incident.

Bahari also thanked the Dutch government for arresting the commander who ordered the killing of 1260 innocent men and hoped he would be convicted.

myn/ma