Murder trial highlights Afghanistan's evolving legal system

Akhtar Jan, a resident of Nangarhar’s Behsood District convicted of kidnapping and committing two murders, was sentenced to death in Jalalabad’s main courthouse Dec. 23.

The trial broke new ground for transparency and judicial procedure for Nangarhar Province’s legal system.

Because the defendant was sentenced to death, he will have an opportunity to appeal to the Astinaf Makhema, Nangarhar’s appellate court, and then Afghanistan’s supreme court. If his conviction is upheld, President Hamid Karzai will have to approve it, explained Shane Kelbley of Philadelphia, Nangarhar Provincial Reconstruction Team senior rule of law advisor.

There was fair public attendance at the trial and extensive coverage in the Afghan media, a positive development in a country where justice is often meted out in private.

“This trial was very fair and very good for the people of Behsood,” said Mullah Niamat, an elder in the Behsood District. “If we had more trials open to the press and the public, then it would greatly reduce crime in Behsood.”

Notably, the prosecutor called two witnesses during the trial: the defendant’s brother and uncle.

“This was the first public trial in which we’ve had witnesses (in Nangarhar),” Kelbley said. “Previous public trials had all relied on the prosecutor’s statements and maybe some pictures, but they haven’t called witnesses.”

The trial was also remarkable in that a taped confession was presented as evidence.

“Oftentimes I think the National Directorate of Security is moving toward that because of unsubstantiated allegations that they’re using police brutality or torture to extract confessions,” said Kelbley. “It’s a common tool used by defendants to say they were tortured into confessing.”

Kelbley said the public nature of the trial also counters insurgent propaganda about the corrupt, inequitable nature of Afghanistan’s evolving legal system.

“The Afghan justice system gets better every day,” Niamat said. “People talk about corruption in the courthouse, but there isn’t really that much corruption.”