The Afghan government has executed two Taliban insurgents for a coordinated gun and suicide attack on a bank which left 38 people dead, it said Monday. Zar Ajam, who was Pakistani, and an Afghan named Mutihullah were sentenced to death earlier this month for their part in the attack on a branch of Kabul Bank in Jalalabad, eastern Afghanistan, in Febrary. President Hamid Karzai personally gave the go-ahead for their sentences to be carried out, a statement from the Afghan intelligence service said.
“They were executed at 11:00 am (0630 GMT) today and a third accomplice in the case was sentenced to 20 years in prison,” said the statement, without specifying the method used. The brazen attack, which targeted security officials collecting their salaries, caused outrage among many in Afghanistan. After the killings, local television repeatedly screened closed-circuit television footage from inside the bank showing a man dressed in police uniform repeatedly shooting unarmed civilians. In an apparent confessional video, Ajam said he “enjoyed” killing people in the bank, believing they were all foreigners.
