Tyrant’s Death

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 852, 21 December 1929, Page 22

Tyrant’s Death

How Bacha, the Afghan, Faced Firing Squad

TORTURED WITNESS'S REVENGE . WRETCHED. tortured VyyY ■ Afghan loyalist —adherent first of Amanullah V#&and Inayatullah, and ml then, after their flights M from the country, of Nadir Khan, the recently - elected King—was the chief witness for the prosecution at the trial of Bacha Sachao. It was mainly as a result of his evidence that the one-time water-carrier, tea-seller, gaol-bird, bandit and thief, who seized Afghanistan's throne as the Amir Habbibullah, went to his doom. This unfortunate person, a sufferer at the usurper’s hands, told of the reign of terror which Bacha opened. He had fallen into Bacha's hands and was found guilty of espionage and sentenced to death. He was chained to the rear of a motor-lorry and dragged at a speed of 20 miles an hour through the main streets of Kabul. His legs w-ere terribly injured, his face and body were battered, and his arms were broken. Prison Anguish Strangely, however, life lingered, and on the lorry’s return to the Ark (the citadel of Kabul) it was found that the poor victim was still breathing. He was cast into prison, and some few days later, when Shah Wali (Nadir’s brother) entered Kabul, a doctor did what he could to ease his anguish. Both his legs were amputated from the thigh and his left arm was removed. Careful nursing resulted in the cripple’s partial recovery, and he had the satisfaction of telling the court of the treatment meted out to him and to seeing Bacha sentenced to death. Bacha met his end the next morning as a brave man. With his brother Hamidullah and 10 of his Ministers he was marched from the Ark to the Kabul Airdrome. The crowds lining the route yelled and shouted as the ex-King was paraded some four miles to the scene of his execution. The morning was bitterly cold. Heavy rain the previous night had made the ground soft and swampy, and the firing party of Waziri tribesmen had difficulty in remaining at attention. Bacha, standing rigid with a smile on his face, calmly awaited his end. Neither he nor his friends were blindfolded. All saw the preparations for their execution, and at 7 a.m,, as the clock at the gate chimed, the order to fire was given. Bacha and his brother and his Ministers fell. Bacha resolutely refused to state what he had done with the treasure he looted from Kabul, Kandahar, and Herat. Nadir Khan’s task now is ;o search for the Afghan gold secreted in the mountains north of Kabul.