An Afghan court sentenced a man to death for killing three foreign journalists and their Afghan colleague shortly after the fall of the hardline Taliban regime in 2001. Reza Khan, 29, was also convicted of raping one of the victims before shooting her, and of murdering his own wife in a separate incident. He admitted to the court he had been among a group of bandits who killed the four, but denied the rape. “I am not guilty. I was forced to join them (the group). I didn’t rape the girl,” Khan told the court Saturday. “You are sentenced to death,” Judge Abdul Baset Bakhtiari of country’s Primary National Security Court said after a short hearing.The journalists were killed in November 2001 on a main road to the capital Kabul from the eastern city of Jalalabad. They were Italian Maria Grazia Cutuli of Corriere della Sera; Spaniard Julio Fuentes, reporting for El Mundo; and Australian cameraman Harry Burton and Afghan photographer Azizullah Haidari who were both working for Reuters. Khan can appeal the court sentence and a date for the execution has not been set. Full Story
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