13-Year-Old Executes Killer of 13 Relatives in Afghan Public Event

In eastern Afghanistan's Khost province, Taliban authorities carried out a public execution on Tuesday, where a 13-year-old boy shot dead the man convicted of killing 13 members of his family, including nine children, in front of thousands of spectators at a local sports stadium.

The executed individual, identified by officials as Mangal, had been found guilty of entering a family home roughly 10 months earlier and gunning down Abdul Rahman, his wife—who was the mother of the children—and 11 other relatives. Khost police spokesman Mustaghfir Gorbaz stated that Mangal acted alongside another accomplice in the attack. The case proceeded through a lower court, an appeals court, and Afghanistan's Supreme Court, which upheld the death sentence before it received final approval from Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada.

Under the Taliban's application of Qisas, or retributive justice drawn from their interpretation of Islamic law, the victims' relatives were offered the choice of forgiveness, which would have spared Mangal's life. They declined and instead demanded execution, leading to the public sentencing. At the stadium, the boy fired three shots at close range after...