Twenty-nine Afghan prosecutors have been killed by the Taliban in the last two years. Three of those killings have occurred within the last three weeks. Many former prosecutors are hiding in fear, unemployed, and unable to provide for their families. It is a problem some experts say the new government created and encouraged.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Taliban released everybody [from jail] and said, \u2018Go take your revenge with impunity,\u2019\u201d Executive Director of Jewish Humanitarian Response (JHR) Caroline Marks told The Media Line. \u201cSo, all the wife beaters, wife murders, rapists, former corrupt politicians, those who were arrested and detained for terrorism, they are the ones who, in addition to the Taliban, are also hunting them down. They essentially end up doing a service for the Taliban.\u201d<\/p>\n
One prosecuter was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered<\/h3>\n
Former prosecutor Mumtaz Sherzai is one such example of a hunted litigator. On July 15, 2022, a gang of Taliban pulled Sherzai away from the home he shared with his wife and 3-year-old daughter in Khost, a city in Southeastern Afghanistan. It wasn’t the first time the Taliban had kidnapped Sherzai, who was working as a law professor at Khost University\u2014but this time it would be the last. The following day, locals found his tortured body two miles away from his home, dumped near the airport. He only made it 11 months under the\u00a0Taliban\u2019s rule<\/a>.<\/p>\n