[JURIST] The Saturday execution [JURIST report] of Saddam Hussein [JURIST news archive] reminds the citizens of Afghanistan that the international legal community has allowed war criminals in Afghanistan to go completely unpunished over the past 25 years, an Afghani human rights leader told reporters Saturday. Ahmad Nader Nadery [official profile; TIME profile], an official of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) [official website], suggested that war crimes trials in Afghanistan could deter tribal warlords from committing future atrocities.

The AIHRC's Peace, Justice, and Reconciliation in Afghanistan Action Plan [text], published in June 2005 and accepted by the Afghan government [JURIST report] late last year, details a national strategy for coming to terms with past human rights abuses. An previous AIHRC report compiled from interviews with over 6000 Afghani citizens and published [JURIST report] called on the international community and the US-backed Afghan government to aid in the prosecution of war criminals. The AIHRC was established in 2002 under the provisions of the 2001 Bonn Agreement [text] which established the post-Taliban Afghan government.