KABUL
An Afghan court of appeals upheld death sentences for five men on Monday in a rape and armed robbery case and reduced the sentence of two others to 20 years' imprisonment for being accomplices in the crime.
According to the head of the court, Sedikullah Hakik, some of the men were dressed in police uniform when they kidnapped a family returning home from a wedding in August, in an area close to the capital, known as Paghman. The men in the family were reportedly beaten while four women, one of them pregnant, were raped.
Afghanistan’s outgoing President Hamid Karzai has said the perpetrators should receive a death sentence.
''The president’s statements undermined the defendants’ presumption of innocence under Afghan and international law and their right to a fair trial by interfering with the independence of the judiciary,'' the Human Rights Watch said in a report released last week.
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