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Veteran Taliban Enforcer Says Amputations Will Resume

‘Necessary for security’: veteran Taliban enforcer says amputations will resume

The Taliban will resume executions and the amputations of hands for criminals they convict, in a return to their harsh version of Islamic justice.

According to a senior official – a veteran leader of the hardline Islamist group who was in charge of justice during its previous period in power – executions would not necessarily take place in public as they did before.

The Taliban’s first period ruling Afghanistan during the 1990s, before they were toppled by a US-led invasion in 2001 following the 9/11 attacks, was marked by the grisly excesses of its perfunctory justice system, which included public executions in the football stadium in Kabul.

In an interview with Associated Press, Mullah Nooruddin Turabi – who was justice minister and head of the so-called ministry of propagation of virtue and prevention of vice during the Taliban’s previous rule – dismissed outrage over the Taliban’s executions in the past, which sometimes took place in front of crowds at a stadium, and warned the world against interfering with Afghanistan’s new rulers.

Under the new Taliban government, Turabi is in charge of prisons. He is among a number of Taliban leaders, including members of the all-male interim cabinet, who are on a United Nations sanctions list.

“Everyone criticised us for the punishments in the stadium, but we have never said anything about their laws and their punishments,” Turabi said in Kabul. “No one will tell us what our laws should be. We will follow Islam and we will make our laws on the Qur’an.”

“Cutting off of hands is very necessary for security,” Turabi added, saying it had a deterrent effect. He said the cabinet was studying whether to carry out punishments in public and would “develop a policy”.

A Taliban police officer slaps a boy for loitering. Force is now supposed to be a last resort, according to Kandahar’s new vice and virtue chief.
Turabi’s comments follow warnings from Afghans who fled the country following the US withdrawal that the Taliban’s system of justice was more likely to follow the model of the way its “shadow courts” meted out punishments in areas it controlled, rather than the system that operated under the western-backed former government.

The shadow court system, headed by Mawlavi Abdul Hakim Sharie, who is the Taliban’s new justice minister, was used to undermine the authority of the previous regime, resolving disputes in a country where many felt they had little access to legal remedy.

A report by Human Rights Watch in 2020 suggested, however, abuses by the Taliban justice system including “prolonged arbitrary detention and summary punishments, including executions”.

“While public punishment for infractions is infrequent compared to the 1990s for offences deemed more serious,” the report continued, “Taliban officials have imprisoned residents and inflicted corporal punishments such as beatings.”

Since the Taliban overran Kabul on 15 August and seized control of the country, Afghans and the world have been watching to see whether they will recreate their harsh rule of the late 1990s.

At that time, the world denounced the Taliban’s punishments, which took place in Kabul’s sports stadium or on the grounds of the sprawling Eid Gah mosque, often attended by hundreds of Afghan men.

Executions of convicted murderers were usually by a single shot to the head, carried out by the victim’s family, who had the option of accepting “blood money” and allowing the culprit to live.

For convicted thieves, the punishment was amputation of a hand. For those convicted of highway robbery, a hand and a foot were amputated.

Trials and convictions were rarely public and the judiciary was weighted in favour of Islamic clerics, whose knowledge of the law was limited to religious injunctions.

Turabi said that this time, judges – including women – would adjudicate on cases, but the foundation of Afghanistan’s laws would be the Qur’an. He said the same punishments would be revived.

Taliban fighters have already revived a punishment they commonly used in the past: public shaming of men accused of small-time theft.

On at least two occasions in Kabul in the past week, men accused of petty theft have been packed into the back of a pickup truck, their hands tied, and paraded around for their humiliation.

In one case, their faces were painted to identify them as thieves. In the other, stale bread was hung from their necks or stuffed in their mouth. It was not immediately clear what their crimes were.

During the previous Taliban rule, Turabi was one of the group’s most ferocious and uncompromising enforcers. When the Taliban took power in 1996, one of his first acts was to scream at a female journalist, demanding she leave a room of men, and to then deal a powerful slap in the face of a man who objected.

Despite the comments on justice, Turabi tried to insist that the current iteration of the Taliban was different, saying that the group would allow television, mobile phones, photos and video “because this is the necessity of the people, and we are serious about it”.

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Police foil N14m ransom payment, rescue kidnap victim, arrest suspects

A kidnap victim, Semiu Ogunniyi, who was abducted from a hotel in Ikare-Akoko, Akoko North-East Local Government Area of Ondo State, has been rescued by police operatives and local hunters.

The Commissioner of Police in the state, Wilfred Afolabi, who disclosed this, revealed that one of the suspected kidnappers involved in the abduction of Ogunniyi, Muhammed Babuga, was arrested in the course of the rescue operation.

According to Afolabi, the kidnappers had demanded a ransom of N14 million for the release of the victim, after which the movement of the suspects was trailed through actionable intelligence.

The police boss disclosed that during the interception, the suspects engaged the operatives in a fierce gun duel, with several suspects sustaining gunshot injuries during the exchange of gunfire.

While speaking with newsmen at the headquarters of the state police command, Afolabi added that two suspected kidnappers, Ibrahim Umar, 25, and Paul Osanyinduro, 38, were arrested in Owo, headquarters of Owo Local Council Area of the state. Abubakar Bamoh, 30, a logistics provider for the kidnappers terrorising various parts of the South-West, was also arrested.

He said, “Command also arrested 3 suspected kidnappers who have confessed to their involvement in various kidnapping cases across the state. This operation marks yet another success in the Command’s ongoing offensive against kidnapping and violent crime in the state.

“Acting on credible intelligence regarding the activities of one Abubakar Bamoh, male, aged 30 years, an indigene of Bunza Local Government Area of Kebbi State, operatives of the Anti-Kidnapping Squad of the Command swung into action and successfully apprehended the suspect at one of the Fulani camps in Igbara-Oke, Ondo State.”
(Daily post)

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SERAP demands explanation over missing N500bn oil revenue from NNPCL

Allow 7m Nigerians to complete voter registration or face legal action, SERAP tells INEC

The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project has asked the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mr Bayo Ojulari, to immediately account for and explain the whereabouts of the N500 billion oil revenue the company allegedly failed to remit to the Federation Account between October and December 2024.

In a letter dated May 17, 2025, and signed by its Deputy Director, Kolawole Oluwadare, SERAP cited recent revelations by the World Bank which showed that out of N1.1 trillion earned from crude oil sales and other income in 2024, only N600 billion was remitted by the NNPCL, leaving a staggering N500 billion unaccounted for.

The organisation is demanding full disclosure and recovery of the missing funds, and has threatened legal action should the company fail to act within seven days.

“SERAP is writing to request you to use your good offices and leadership position to promptly account for and explain the whereabouts of the missing N500 billion, which the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited failed to remit to the Federation Account,” the letter stated.JAMB’s

SERAP also urged Ojulari to identify and surcharge those responsible for the missing funds and hand them over to anti-graft agencies for investigation and prosecution.

“SERAP urges you to promptly identify those suspected to be responsible for the alleged missing oil money, surcharge them for the full amount involved, and hand them over to the ICPC and the EFCC,” the group wrote.

Citing the World Bank report, the group noted that revenue from oil sales and other sources was expected to be fully paid into the Federation Account and shared by all tiers of government, but the NNPCL failed to comply.

“Nigerians have the right to know why the NNPCL is remitting only 50 per cent of the gains generated from the removal of petrol subsidies to the Federation Account,” SERAP said.

“The failure by the NNPCL to remit the money is a grave violation of the public trust and the provisions of the Nigerian Constitution, national anti-corruption laws, and international obligations under the UN Convention against Corruption.”

SERAP warned that the alleged disappearance of such a large sum has serious implications for economic development, poverty alleviation, and the provision of basic public services at a time of national hardship.

“Despite the country’s enormous oil wealth, ordinary Nigerians have derived very little benefit from oil money primarily because of widespread grand corruption, and the entrenched culture of impunity of perpetrators,” the group added.

It stressed that the failure of the NNPCL to uphold transparency and accountability standards has worsened the country’s fiscal crisis.

“The missing oil revenue reflects a failure of NNPCL accountability more generally and is directly linked to the institution’s continuing failure to uphold the principles of transparency,” SERAP noted.

Citing paragraph 3112(ii) of the Financial Regulations 2009, the group said any public officer who fails to account for government revenue “shall be surcharged for the full amount involved and handed over to either the EFCC or the ICPC.”

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Security Operatives Nab ‘Wanted’ Kidnapper In Abuja Hajj Camp

Security operatives have reportedly arrested a wanted kidnapper at the hajj camp in Abuja.

A security source at the camp confirmed the arrest to our correspondent, on Sunday.

He said the suspect was nabbed during screening of pilgrims who were preparing to be airlifted to Saudi Arabia. He disclosed that the suspect identified as Yahaya Zango resided at Paikon -Kore in Gwagwalada area council of the FCT.

The source said security agencies had declared him wanted, following his alleged involvement in some kidnappings.

He said the suspect presented his passport alongside other Muslim contingent from Abuja who were on their way to observe this year’s hajj. “It was this afternoon during the screening at the hajj camp in airport when the DSS operatives apprehended him and whisked him away,” he said