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Afghan prison commander jailed for 12 years for war crimes by Dutch court

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An Afghan man was convicted by a Dutch court on Thursday of war crimes and torture for abusing political opponents at Kabul's Pul-e-Charkhi prison in the 1980s and was sentenced to 12 years in jail.

Judges said the man, 76, who had been calling himself Abdul Rafief, was actually Abdul Razaq Arif who served as commander of the prison between 1983 and 1990. They dismissed his testimony that he was the victim of a mistaken identity, Reuters reported.

A lawyer for Arif said he would appeal.

Arif arrived in the Netherlands seeking asylum under the Rafief name in 2001 and since became a Dutch national.

He was being tried under "universal jurisdiction" principles, which say suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity can be prosecuted abroad if they cannot be tried in the country where they were allegedly committed, Reuters reported.

According to prosecutors, Arif was responsible for political prisoners in the jail, who were held in inhumane conditions in the facility. Guards under his command beat, tortured and executed prisoners, they said.

During the trial prosecutors cited witnesses who identified "Rafief" as Arif to investigative judges. One victim told judges he still suffered sleepless nights from the psychological torture he underwent in prison.

In the 1980s, Afghanistan's Soviet-backed government was fighting a guerrilla war against "Mujahideen" Islamist rebels at the time, following the Soviet invasion in 1979.

The Netherlands has previously tried three high ranking officials of the Afghan military intelligence service for similar crimes in the same period in Afghanistan.

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Iran enforces stricter laws on employment of illegal immigrants

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Iran's Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni said on Thursday that the country has enforced stricter laws on the employment of illegal immigrants.

According to IRNA, Momeni told reporters that since March last year, about 1.1 million illegal foreign citizens have been repatriated to their country with the coordination of the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Pointing out that some deported illegal foreign nationals return to Iran, he stated: "Plans in the areas of physical and electronic border closures have been prioritized to minimize the number of returns."

Momeni emphasized that employing illegal foreign nationals deprives Iranians of many job opportunities, therefore, labor laws have been implemented more strictly in this regard and violating employers will face action.

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IEA says it has control of Afghanistan embassy in Ankara

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A foreign ministry official in Kabul said on Thursday that the Islamic Emirate's diplomats at the Afghanistan embassy in Ankara provide consular services and represent the country.

Earlier, the Afghan embassy in Ankara said in a statement that all diplomats appointed by the previous government would end their missions from February 6, 2025, adding that the embassy was handed over to the Turkish Foreign Ministry.

Zakir Jalali, director of the third political department of the Afghan Foreign Ministry, said on X that the Afghan embassy in Ankara continues to operate and is at the service of citizens and other visitors.

"Citizens should be assured that consular services and representating duties are carried out by the diplomats of the Islamic Emirate in the embassy with transparency, responsibility and full commitment," he said. "Changes in diplomatic personnel are common in diplomatic missions.”

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IEA rejects claims of being targeted by cyberattackers

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The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) said in a statement on Thursday that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s (IEA) digital systems have not been hacked and that all its data is secure.

This comes after a self-declared hacker group started posting documents on social media claiming that these were taken from IEA government systems over the past 12 months.

However, the IEA said in a statement on Thursday that the documents shared on social media were old documents that could have been leaked from individual computers that lacked security.

The IEA said the aim of social media users, who published the documents, was to confuse the public and make it appear as if the Islamic Emirate’s systems had been targeted in a cyberattack.

They also said their systems are secure, maintained by professional staff and protected from external interference.

In addition, the National Data Center and other archived systems are fully secure and have been reliably maintained against cyberattacks, the IEA’s statement read.

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