KABUL (AFP) - A former intelligence chief was sentenced to death after a court found him guilty of systematic killings and other human rights violations during Afghanistan’s communist era.

This is becoming a very common theme, now that the 18 Commissions are starting to do their work on cleaning things up.

Russian-educated Asadullah Sarwari was installed for one year as head of the feared intelligence department of the first Afghan communist government in 1978.

“Sarwari was sentenced to death for killing thousands of mujahedin (holy warriors) and Muslims while he was the head of intelligence,” judge Abdul Basit Bakhtiari who headed the trial told AFP Saturday.

It would seem as though that other website ought to take notice as to what’s happening to their soviet-trained friends in Afghanistan. After all….the Afghans have a low bullshit tolerance as you can see with the execution, hanging and castration of their former president (see picture below).

As I recall, the story about former president Najibullah is similar to that of Sarwari in that they were both Afghans who served dutifully under the soviets. Najibullah was the president of Afghanistan from 1986 till 1992, installed by the Soviet Union in 1986. Before that, he was made head of the secret police and became known for his brutality and ruthlessness. His methods proved invaluable to the regime in view of escalating Islamic guerrilla warfare, but as the war grew in intensity, the Soviet Union withdrew. As president, Najibullah attempted to gain support by relaxing his strict control, but he was widely despised and was finally forced from office by the Islamic rebels. Factional fighting continued, and when the Taliban militia took over the capital, Kabul, they executed Najibullah, castrated him and hung him for the people to see, alongside his brother. There is another gruesome picture that shows that they also stuffed some Afghanis (Afghan currency) rolled up, into his bloody nose.

Although Americans seem to very easily kid themselves to think that we can all ‘give peace a chance’, some people in Afghanistan take things much more seriously, and apparently they’re not very fond of their Soviet-trained friends, or their friends who served under the Soviets.

This low tolerance applies also to a certain interpreter-named Wadir Safi, the Afghan minister of Soviet Affairs for the Soviets, who recently on Afghan television, was complaining about the justice system in Afghanistan. What makes his recent pronouncements amusing is–This man was the soviet-trained interpreter who took extreme liberties with the facts and other information during Jack’s trial, purposely mis-translating and interjecting his own opinions. Safi was the government appointed interpreter who was a former member of the anti-American Soviet backed government. (It is no wonder that the ‘other website’ attacking Idema’s military record and celebrating his imprisonment has a Russian connection. Much more experienced at lies and propaganda, it is fitting that their website would be transferred to some Jack Idema-hating Russian propagandists.) The interpreter during Jack’s trial, Safi, consciously misinterpreted on a regular basis, provided advice to the Judge against the defense, and often refused to interpret Idema’s and the defense attorney’s statements.