Taliban judges are expected to issue a verdict next...

Taliban judges are expected to issue a verdict next week in the trial of eight foreigners held in jail in Kabul since August on charges of spreading Christianity, their lawyer said.
Atif Ali Khan, 26, the Pakistani lawyer representing the aid workers, said he believed the accused - two Americans, two Australians and four Germans - would be released. "The verdict should come any time now and I am very confident that it will be an acquittal," Mr Khan said.
Although the chief justice, Noor Mohammed Saqib, is in charge of the case, the Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, has made it clear he will decide the verdict himself.
Mullah Omar is now believed to be in hiding in southern Afghanistan and given the continued military strikes he may be reluctant to let the eight go free.
Taliban police also arrested 16 of the agency's Afghan staff, including drivers and gardeners, who will face trial later and who risk being sentenced to death under sharia law if they are found to have converted from Islam.