The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) welcomes the prison terms of sixteen years handed down by a local court in Nijrab district of the eastern Afghan province of Kapisa, to the two accused in the murder of journalist Muhsin Hashami.

According to information received from the Afghan Independent Journalists’ Association, an IFJ affiliate, Hashami went missing from his home in Nijrab district on May 2 this year. His body was found eighteen days later in a well near his home, bearing stab and bullet wounds.

Accepting the evidence led by the prosecution in the case, a local court convicted the two accused in the case to sixteen years’ imprisonment.

Muhsin Hashami was working with Sadai Nijrab, a local FM radio station at the time of his death.

The IFJ welcomes this verdict as a substantive measure to dispel the climate of impunity in Afghanistan and calls on the authorities to provide all necessary protection to the slain journalist’s family, which apprehends a possible threat from associates of the two convicted men.