Reza Khan, an Afghan man accused of killing four journalists in 2001...

Reza Khan, an Afghan man accused of killing four journalists in 2001, was found guilty and sentenced to death after saying his gang was acting on the orders of a top Taliban commander. 
Khan, 29, was also found guilty by the National Security Court of raping an Italian woman among the journalists, and sentenced to 15 years in prison on that charge. Khan was convicted in the same session on separate charges of killing his wife and of holding up a bus and cutting off the ears and noses of four male passengers.
"The crimes are proven and there is no doubt about it," trial judge Abdul Baset Bakhtari told the court. Khan stood impassively as the sentences were read out. The four journalists, including Australian television cameraman Harry Burton and Afghan photographer Azizullah Haidari of Reuters, were killed on November 19, 2001, at Tangi Abrishum, about 90 km (55 miles) east of Kabul. They were both 33. Spaniard Julio Fuentes of El Mundo and Italian Maria Grazia Cutuli of Corriere della Sera were the other two victims.
The journalists were stopped on the road from Pakistan by a gang of about 12 gunmen while trying to reach Kabul days after the defeated Taliban had withdrawn from the city. Speaking in the judge's chambers before the hearing, Khan said he had shot "the Afghan" among the journalists on the orders of local Taliban commander Mohammad Agha and insisted he would have been killed had he disobeyed. "I fired two bullets from my gun and I killed the Afghan," he said.
In court before sentencing, he admitted killing his wife and attacking the bus passengers, but denied shooting any of the journalists and the charge of rape, however. "I was forced to go there and I am really sorry for this action against the foreigners and locals," he said.
"I am seeking mercy because I was forced to go there by Mohammad Agha." Khan told the court that after the journalists were captured, Mohammad Agha had spoken by satellite telephone to a top Taliban commander, Mullah Brother, who gave the order to kill them. Mullah Brother is one of two top military aides to fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.
Khan said the journalists were stood in line with their hands tied and Mohammad Agha shot the woman first, about an hour or 90 minutes after they were first stopped, and then the others. "He (Agha) said: 'we are going to do a jihad (holy war)' and opened fire," Khan said, adding that Haidari had appealed to Agha not to shoot as he was just a journalist, and also an Afghan. Explaining the separate mutilation of the bus passengers, Khan said Agha had ordered this treatment of men found without beards, to show "there are still Taliban around".