Pat Dollard | Young Americans

For all the botched Lethal Injection fiascos here in the states, we might take a lesson on the cost effectiveness, and humanity of a bullet to the head, eh?

KABUL, Afghanistan - Ending a three-year moratorium on the death penalty, Afghanistan executed 15 prisoners by gunfire, including a man convicted of killing three foreign journalists during the U.S.-led invasion, the prisons chief announced Monday.

The United Nations protested the executions, LOL ~Bash which could complicate the missions of some NATO nations here.

The mass execution took place Sunday evening according to Afghan law, which calls for condemned prisoners to be shot to death, said Abdul Salam Ismat, who oversees Afghanistan’s prisons.

The crimes committed by those executed included murder, kidnapping and armed robbery, but officials said no Taliban or al-Qaida fighters were among the prisoners.

Among those executed was Reza Khan, who was convicted of adultery and the murder of one Afghan and three foreign journalists in 2001. The four were pulled from their cars, robbed and shot near the eastern city of Jalalabad while driving toward Kabul six days after the Taliban abandoned the capital under heavy U.S. bombing.

The four were Australian TV cameraman Harry Burton, Afghan photographer Azizullah Haidari of the Reuters news agency, Maria Grazia Cutuli of Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera and Julio Fuentes of the Spanish daily El Mundo.

Also executed was Farhad, who is also known as Pahlavan and like many Afghan used only a single name. He was involved in the 2005 kidnapping of Italian aid worker Clementina Cantoni; she was freed after three weeks.

The government’s official announcement of the executions came on state television Monday evening, saying said Karzai ordered the executions following a decision by a special commission he set up to review rulings by the Supreme Court.

“After all the discussions and after looking back over the cases … in order to prevent future crimes, such as murders, armed robberies, kidnappings, and to maintain the stability of the country, (Karzai) approved the prisoners’ death sentences,” a statement read over the news said.

Karzai’s spokesman, Humayun Hamidzada, had told The Associated Press last week that Karzai was taking “extreme care in execution cases.”

“He has been holding on to these cases because he wants to make sure that the justice is served and the due process is complete. He personally does not like executions, but Afghan law asks for it, and he will obey the laws,” Hamidzada said.

The Dutch Foreign Ministry expressed distress at the executions. I’m sure they would be less distressed if the four journalists killed by the thugs were Dutch, eh?