KANDAHAR: The fundamentalist Taliban on Thursday condemned the release of an Afghan who had faced execution for converting to Christianity, calling for jihad against the "enemies of Islam".
The case of Abdul Rahman, who was on Wednesday secretly flown to Italy for asylum, showed that President Hamid Karzai's government was a puppet of the West and the country's judiciary had sold out, the Taliban said in a statement.
"Apostate Abdul Rahman's release makes it clear that Afghanistan's judiciary is not independent and its decisions are in the hands of foreigners," Taliban spokesman Mohammed Hanif told AFP, reading a statement by the hardliners.
"There are no longer judges or mullahs in Kabul -- they are all sell-outs who cheat the nation under the name of the Islamic judiciary. They should have resigned," the statement said.
The arrest two weeks ago of Rahman under Islamic Sharia law, which says that anyone who leaves Islam must be put to death unless they recant, was strongly condemned by the Western nations that helped to topple the Taliban regime in late 2001.
Rahman's trial was suspended at the weekend when the Supreme Court expressed doubts over the 41-year-old's mental capacity and after enormous Western pressure on the government.
The Taliban, notorious for its harsh implementation of Sharia that included stoning adulterers to death, said the case was created by foreign nations to undermine the authority of Islam.
It was engineered to "assure other recalcitrants that they are no longer in danger and no one in Islam can punish them."
"The Afghan nation will not be deceived with such schemes and inshallah (God willing) such plots will be neutralised," the statement said.
"We condemn this crime of the puppet administration. We ask our Muslim brothers to take their position against this offence by the enemies of Islam and to act, based on their responsibility to their religion and God, and to start jihad against Karzai's administration," it said.
The Taliban have been waging an insurgency since they were removed from power in a US-led operation launched after the September 11 attacks, blamed on Taliban ally and Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.
