No outside trial for Osama: Taleban

No outside trial for Osama: Taleban

KARACHI, Pakistan (AFP): Afghanistan's Taleban authorities on Wednesday said they would not deliver suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden to a Lockerbie-style trial, saying there is no evidence against him.

Afghan consul general in Pakistan Rehmat Akunzada said that if the United States provided concrete evidence linking Osama to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa, he would be tried under Islamic law in Afghanistan.

"Afghanistan is an independent and sovereign country. We have an Islamic system of justice and Osama can be tried in the presence of an international monitoring team provided we get some evidence against him," he said.

U.S. consul general to Pakistan John Bennett said on Tuesday the trial in the Netherlands of two Libyans accused of bombing a Pan American Airways jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1998 was a possible formula for Osama's trial.