Arafat seeks freedom for U.S. aid workers

By staff and wires

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CNN ) -- Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is having a message delivered to Afghanistan's ruling Taliban that asks for the release of two American aid workers accused of preaching Christianity, according to the Afghan Foreign Ministry.

Ahmed Salman, the Palestinian ambassador to Pakistan, arrived in Kandahar Thursday on an International Committee of the Red Cross flight carrying a message from Arafat to Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, asking for the release of the Americans.

While not expected to meet with Omar, he is expected to meet with Foreign Minister Mullah Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil.

The eight members of the Shelter Now International assistance group -- two Americans, four Germans and two Australians -- are accused by the Taliban of attempting to convert Muslims to Christianity, an act considered illegal by the strict Islamic group.

RESOURCES Message Board: The Taliban

Sixteen Afghan aid workers have also been arrested.

An Australian aid worker being held in Afghanistan celebrated her birthday Thursday, as the Taliban prepared to try all eight aid workers. Australian diplomat Alastar Adams, in Kabul along with diplomats from the United States and Germany, brought a bright bouquet of flowers to Diana Thomas.

She and the other aid workers are being held at a reform school for delinquent children in the heart of Kabul. The Taliban allowed the visit to the two Australians but gave no indication when diplomats would get access to the four Germans and two Americans.

The diplomats also were trying to meet Taliban officials to get more information about a decision by the Islamic militia to put the foreign aid workers on trial.

"After the investigation is completed, the case will go to court and the court will decide according to Shariat (Islamic law)," Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil told the Taliban's official Bakhtar News Agency.

The workers have been held for more than three weeks. No date has been set for the trial, The Associated Press reported.

According to Taliban law, the penalty for foreigners caught preaching Christianity is three to 10 days in jail and expulsion. The penalty for an Afghan who converts to Christianity is death.

The official news agency quoted Muttawakil as saying the court ruling will be sent to the Taliban's reclusive leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, who has final say in all matters in Afghanistan.

The aid organization is described as a German-based Christian group that has been operating in Afghanistan since 1993, before the Taliban's takeover of Kabul in 1996.

It operates in several provinces, but the Taliban have shut down all its projects since the arrests in Kabul.

Diplomats from the United States, Germany and Australia, have been meeting Taliban foreign ministry officials to try to find out when an investigation will be completed into the charges that the aid workers were seeking converts.

The Taliban has told western diplomats in Kabul that "crippling" U.N. sanctions are to blame for the thousands of Afghans leaving the country.

Sanctions and effect

Abdul Rehman Hotak, head of the consular department at the Taliban foreign ministry, said on Wednesday the diplomats, including American David Donahue, were briefed on the sanctions and their effect.

Hundreds of mainly Afghan asylum seekers are at the centre of an international row with three countries bickering over who is responsible for giving them a home.

A second group of mainly Afghan asylum seekers is now stranded in Indonesia.

"It is the result of the U.N. sanctions that the Afghans leave Afghanistan to have a good life abroad," Hotak told Reuters in an interview.

The U.N Security Council in November 1999 froze Taliban assets abroad and banned international flights by Afghanistan's Ariana state airlines to force the Taliban to surrender Saudi militant Osama bin Laden to face U.S. charges of masterminding the bombing of two U.S. embassies in 1998.