KABUL: An Afghan judge on Sunday sentenced seven men to death for the gang-rape of four women in a case that sparked nationwide outrage and highlighted the violence women face in the country.

The seven men, who stood in the dock dressed in brown traditional clothing, were found guilty of kidnapping and attacking the women members of a group driving home to Kabul from a wedding.

President Hamid Karzai on Sunday had called for the men to be hanged. The death sentences were technically handed down for the crime of armed robbery rather than rape.

In a televised trial that lasted only a few hours, the court heard that the men, who had obtained police uniforms and were armed with guns, stopped a convoy of cars in the early hours of August 23.

They dragged the four women out of the vehicles, robbed them, beat them up and then raped them. One of the women was reported to be pregnant.

“We went to Paghman with our families. On the way back, they took us,” one victim, dressed in a burqa, told the packed courtroom as noisy protesters outside demanded the death penalty.

“One of them put his gun to my head, the other one took all our jewellery, and the rest started what you already know,” she said.

Applause erupted inside the court after Kabul police chief Zahir Zahir called for the men to be hanged. “We want them to be hanged in public so that it will be a lesson for others,” he said.

“We arrested them with police uniforms. They confessed to their crime within two hours of their arrest.”

The judge said the seven had the right to appeal against their sentences.

Under Afghan law, the president must also sign a death warrant for an execution to go ahead.

The gang-rape had unleashed a wave of public anger via street protests, the media and the internet.

Hasina Safi, head of the Afghan Women’s Network action group, said she welcomed the death penalties. “We consider it a big step and achievement for the women of Afghanistan. I wish we had more such cases decided on openly, so that we didn’t have to suffer such heinous acts.”

Published in Dawn, September 8th, 2014