MICHELE NORRIS, Host:
NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson has the story from Kabul.
SAYED YAQUB IBRAHIMI: (Speaking in foreign language).
SORAYA SARHADDI NELSON: Paul Fishstein heads the Afghanistan Evaluation and Research Unit, a local think tank.
PAUL FISHSTEIN: Most people I talk to, or in Kabul anyway, look at this as an example of their concerns about the justice sector and public institutions more generally. There are questions about motivation, what's behind the case. There are questions about transparency, how was it handled, how was the case presented, and also about due process.
SARHADDI NELSON: Yaqub Ibrahimi has similar questions, especially since he and many others here believe he, not his younger brother, is the real target. Ibrahimi is a journalist who has written controversial stories over the past year about corruption and kidnapping by warlords in the main northern political party, Jamiat-e Islami. His stories appeared on the Web site of the Institute of War and Peace Reporting, a British-run organization that trains Afghan journalists.
YAQUB IBRAHIMI: (Speaking in foreign language).
SARHADDI NELSON: Ibrahimi says he started getting threatening phone calls telling him to back off, but he persisted. Then in October, police arrested his brother. He and the institute's director, Jean Mackenzie, say the day after the arrest, Afghan intelligence agents raided Ibrahimi's home and went through his computer, notebooks and address book. Family and friends say strangers started asking about Ibrahimi's whereabouts, so Ibrahimi went into hiding. He never stays in the same place more than one night.
YAQUB IBRAHIMI: (Through translator) I didn't tell my brother that I was the real reason he's in this mess. I just tried to cheer him up and tell him he'd be released.
SARHADDI NELSON: The governor denied any link between Ibrahimi's articles and the death sentence against his brother. He also denied involvement in the court case. But he suggested in a phone interview that the sentence was a bit much.
ATA MOHAMMAD NUR: (Through translator) He's a young man, a sapling, if you will. It would be better if we forgave him rather than condemn him.
SARHADDI NELSON: Afghanistan's information and culture minister, Abdul Karim Khurram, agreed.
ABDUL KARIM KHURRAM: (Through translator) I'm hopeful that in the next stages, justice will be served. And even if it isn't, any death warrant has to be signed off by President Karzai.
SARHADDI NELSON: Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, NPR News, Kabul.
ROBERT SIEGEL, Host:
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