Detained aid workers freed

Eight western aid workers on trial for preaching Christianity in Afghanistan were released on Wednesday and are now in Pakistan, following a dramatic turn of events, their lawyer confirmed to IRIN on Thursday. "They were driven to their embassies to meet relatives and officials in Islamabad, where they are now resting," the lawyer, Atif Ali Khan, said. The eight, who had been working in Kabul for the Shelter Now International relief agency, were flown to Pakistan in three US special forces helicopters.

Khan said the Taliban had moved the aid workers out of Kabul on Monday, just before it fell to the Northern Alliance, and were supposedly on their way to the southern province of Kandahar, but only got far as the eastern province of Ghazni, where they were then put into a local jail.

The 26-year old Pakistani lawyer had travelled to Afghanistan three times over the past few months to represent the aid workers and present their case. They were awaiting their fate from the Supreme Court in Kabul when the city fell to the Northern Alliance. However, he said on Wednesday, according to reports he had received, local members of the opposition managed to free them from the Taliban.

The two Americans, two Australians and four Germans were detained in early August together with 16 Afghan nationals for allegedly working to convert Afghan Muslims to Christianity. Under the Taliban's strict interpretation of Shari'ah law, the charge for proselytising is punishable by death.