Taliban brings back stadium executions as murderer put to death in front of baying crowd after he killed pregnant wife

THE Taliban has publicly executed a murderer in a sports stadium packed with roaring crowds – after he was convicted of killing his pregnant wife.

The attacker was shot three times by a relative of one of his two victims at the Badghis provincial stadium in front of hundreds of spectators.

Identified only as Ismail, the Afghan man was found guilty of killing two people before he was sentenced to death and executed on Thursday.

Local courts said Ismail fatally shot the pair dead in the Jawand district of the Badghis province.

Authorities confirmed: “The murderer killed two people, a man and his wife, who was around eight months pregnant.”

And the Taliban’s Supreme Court said: “The families of the victims were offered amnesty and peace but they refused.”

The dramatic scenes marked the eleventh public execution in Afghanistan since the Taliban returned to power in 2021.

The terror group said the event was conducted in line with Islamic law.

Posters and leaflets were circulated around, inviting as many people as possible to attend the public killing.

The execution had to be reviewed by three courts and then greenlit by the nation’s supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada before it could go ahead.

Taliban rulers continue to hand out public floggings for offences such as theft, adultery and drinking alcohol.

But all execution orders need to be approved by the Taliban’s supreme leader Akhundzada, who lives in the movement’s heartland of Kandahar.

Public executions were common during the Taliban’s first reign from 1996 to 2001 – with most of them carried out in sports stadiums.

The latest executions unfolded in April this year, when four men were put to death in front of thousands of spectators.

And last November, a convicted murderer was shot three times in the chest by a member of the victim’s family in front of thousands of spectators.

The spilling crowd at the stadium in Gardez even included high-ranking Taliban officials.

Akhundzada ordered judges to fully implement all aspects of the Taliban government’s interpretation of Islamic law – including “eye-for-an-eye” punishments known as “qisas” – in 2022.

The move permitted the the death penalty in retribution for committing murder.

The UN’s Human Rights office said following the execution: “We condemn the public execution of a man at Badghis Stadium after he was sentenced to death for murder.

“Public executions breach international law, and the death penalty more generally is incompatible with the fundamental right to life.”

It comes after the Taliban launched a wave of cross-border attacks on Pakistani troops – triggering the fiercest escalation between the two sides in years.

Fighting erupted along the volatile northern frontier across multiple mountainous regions.

Both sides unleashed small arms and artillery fire in what the Taliban government described as “retaliatory operations”.