Aid workers on trial "very scared"

The lawyer representing the eight foreign aid workers on trial in Kabul for preaching Christianity has said they are in "good health", but "very scared", after visiting them to collect their reply to the Taliban to the charges they face. "It is difficult for them to be there alone, and it was difficult for us to leave them there," the lawyer, Atif Ali Khan, told IRIN on Wednesday. He made the trip at a time when heavy US-led air strikes hit Kabul. Khan submitted the reply to the charges against the two Americans, two Australians and four Germans on Saturday, and said he was hoping to return to Afghanistan on Sunday 21 October in the hope of a quick response or judgement to be handed down by the Supreme Court. The 26 year-old Pakistani national will travel by road through Pakistan's North West Frontier Province into eastern Afghanistan, before proceeding to the capital. He said he had had very little communication with the Taliban since returning from Afghanistan at the weekend. "We are trying to get in touch with the authorities, but the communications system has been bombed out," he said. On the question of how long it would take before a reply was likely to be forthcoming from the Taliban, Khan said there was no way of telling, but explained that once the judgement was issued it would be sent to the Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, for final approval. The eight, who work for the German-based Shelter Now International aid agency, were detained in early August together with 16 Afghan nationals for allegedly working to convert Afghan Muslims to Christianity. The Taliban's Deputy Minister for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, Mohammad Salim Haqqani, had shown reporters computer disks containing the story of the life of Christ in the local Dari language, a copy of the Bible in English and Dari, a book on Christianity, and the written confession of one of the accused, according to newspaper reports. The trial took place behind closed doors, and the aid workers appeared in court on 8 September. Diplomats were able to meet them, but were forced to leave following the terrorist attacks on the US on 11 September. Under the strict Islamic Shari'ah law applied in Afghanistan, preaching Christianity is punishable by death.