The Taliban's fugitive supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar should be hanged for supporting terrorism and for bringing shame upon Islam, one of Kabul's most prominent Muslim clerics said on Sunday. Mullah Abdul Raouf, banned by the Taliban from preaching in his own mosque, said an international tribunal should try Omar and sentence him to death. "He is the defender of killers, not the defender of the faithful," Raouf said in a reference to Omar's backing for Osama bin Laden, prime suspect in the September 11 attacks on the United States, and his al Qaeda network of militants. While the Koran, Islam's holy book, did not encourage capital punishment, it also provided for just retribution, the 55-year-old cleric said. "If someone is cruel to you, so he deserves cruelty," Raouf said in an interview at the Kwaj Ali Mofeq Herawee mosque in the Afghan capital.
"He committed a great many crimes and caused scandal to Islam," Raouf said. "He should be hanged by a court...and serve as an example to others." Bureau Report