AID WORKERS FACING DEATH PENALTY STRANDED IN KABUL

the fate of the eight Shelter Now International aid workers Georg Taubmann, Katrin Jelinek, Margrit Stebner and Silke Durrkopf, all German nationals, Australians Peter Bunch and Diana Thomas, and Americans Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer is still uncertain.
"We will try to protect them if America attacks," Abdul Hai Mutmaen, chief Taliban spokesman, told reporters in a city that appears increasingly resigned to facing U.S. retribution for the September 11 terror attacks on New York and Washington.
Diplomats from Germany, the United States and Australia - along with tearful relatives of the two American prisoners - all boarded a UN flight out of Kabul on Thursday back to Pakistan after a Taliban order for all foreigners to leave the country.
Although the United States had not yet directly blamed the attacks on Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden, who is sheltered in Afghanistan by the Taliban, foreigners and even residents poured out in expectation that Washington will conclude he was the mastermind.
The Taliban spokesman said the trial of the eight aid workers accused of promoting Christianity would continue.
There was no indication how long the trial would last. The charge could carry a death penalty although a final decision will rest with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.
The volunteers’ Pakistani lawyer, Atif Ali Khan, fears a U.S. military strike at Afghanistan could destroy any hope of persuading the Muslim clerics who will pass judgment on the eight to show compassion and set them free.
Khan, a specialist both in Islamic law, known as Sharia, and human rights law, is still trying to persuade the Taliban embassy in Pakistan´s capital to issue him a visa so that he can defend his clients. After failing to find any Western diplomats willing to help him, he is afraid the aid workers have been abandoned.
"Especially after the [U.S. and other] diplomats left Kabul, I feel these people have been left alone," he said in an interview. "The situation is really tense now."