Kabul, June 10: Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced during a news conference on Thursday that officials were looking into reports that suspected Taliban militants executed a 7-year-old boy accused of spying for the government.
If true, he would condemn the act, he said. Dawoud Ahmadi, the provincial governor’s spokesman in Helmand province, said that the execution took place Tuesday in the Sangin district.
“I don’t think there’s a crime bigger than that that even the most inhuman forces on earth can commit,” Karzai said, according to CNN. “A 7-year-old boy cannot be a spy. A 7-year-old boy cannot be anything but a 7-year-old boy, and therefore hanging or shooting to kill a 7-year-old boy … is a crime against humanity.”
British Prime Minister David Cameron, who was touring Afghanistan on Wednesday for the first time since he was elected, described the crime, if true, as “absolutely horrific.” “If true,” he said, “I think it says more about the Taliban than any book, than any article, than any speech could ever say.” Militants were responsible for killing an elderly woman and a child in the same province three years ago after accusing them of spying.
–Agencies