Afghan judges face revenge from Taliban terrorists they sent to jail

In a letter to The Times, Baroness Hale of Richmond said “now that the prisons are being thrown open” the Afghan judiciary, and female judges in particular, “will be a target for revenge from the terrorists they convicted and sentenced”.

Hale said that about 270 women had been serving as judges. “Their position has always been dangerous and will be even more so with the Taliban in charge,” she wrote. She added that the women had “played a vital role in upholding the rule of law and the human rights of all Afghanis”.

Judges and lawyers are thought to have destroyed their qualification certificates and legal textbooks as they fear holding evidence of their profession.

Susan Glazebrook, president of the International Association of Women Judges, said that Afghan judges “are absolutely terrified and in hiding”, adding that “they are getting threatening letters from released prisoners and the Taliban are searching door to door”.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton QC, the shadow attorney-general, said that the government “must help as many to leave [as possible], and for those that can’t we must keep the eyes of the world on them or they and their children will be killed”.

In January two women members of the Afghan supreme court were shot dead in Kabul.

An Afghan judge said that he was living in fear of “being killed by the convicted criminals who, with the help of the Taliban, broke [out of] jails and [were set] free”. In a letter to the Bar Council of England and Wales, he said that he and his colleagues were prominent targets for the Taliban.

The militants ruling the country view judges and senior lawyers as having co-operated with allied forces in creating a western system of the rule of law in Afghanistan that conflicts with sharia.

The judge said “the situation is gravely dangerous for judges. We live hidden, there is not any safe route to escape.