Kabul 24 by Ben Pearson & Ben Pearson

Author:Ben Pearson & Ben Pearson [Arnold, Henry O. & Pearson, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2018-12-02T00:00:00+00:00

In 2003, Ben filming Georg (in center of doorway) leaving the site where the trial of the SNI eight was held.

Atif Ali Khan stood outside the supreme court building when his clients pulled up. This time the front of the building was not jammed with journalists. One lone reporter from the Al Jazeera network stood in front of the building, his microphone in his hand, his camera crew milling about, waiting for something to shoot. They went into action the moment the convoy stopped in front of the building. The reporter began to speak, and the camera operator filmed the hostages climbing out of the vehicle and entering the building. That was all there was to the performance. It was comic in comparison to the last time the SNI eight had arrived at the supreme court building: hundreds of reporters from all over the world tussling for the best angles and bombarding them with questions, as if the SNI eight were royalty instead of hostages. The Al Jazeera reporter asked them no questions, and the only footage shot was of a human procession from vehicle to entrance, hardly exciting television.

Inside the courtroom the comedy continued, though due to the imminent threat of allied bombing, Chief Justice Mullah Noor Mohammed Saqib and the rest of the court played the grumpy foils opposite the main characters. Since Atif had not appeared in the court until now, the SNI eight had to formally declare him as their attorney and have the chief justice and the other judges approve of him. Interestingly, many of the judges who had been little more than decorative plants in the first hearing had fled the city in the expectation that bombs would be falling from the sky any day now; those who were in the room appeared to have no understanding of what was going on. They sat cross-legged in their judge’s chairs, worried their prayer beads, and tried not to draw attention to themselves.

Once Atif received approval from the chief justice as an acceptable defender for his clients, the court had the SNI eight fingerprinted and the mark of their thumbprints stamped next to their photos, as if this routine were somehow relevant to a case the prosecution intended to build. They had not stolen anything. Were Taliban detectives going to dust for fingerprints at the SNI offices and building sites? If it was just for the sake of positive identity, why had they not done this before now and not two months into the process? Moreover, how was this to clarify whom they charged with what crime? It soon would become apparent that over half the SNI team had committed no crime but were guilty simply by association with Shelter Now International.

To add to the circus atmosphere, the court had written the charges in the Dari dialect and proceeded to read the charges in Dari. Atif only spoke Pashto and English. All but Georg spoke some words or phrases in the Dari dialect (he spoke Pashto),

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