Mick Hartley

More on the young couple stoned to death by the Taliban:

A young woman stoned to death in Afghanistan's north had run away from home because her father had sold her into marriage with a wealthy relative, The Scotsman can reveal.

Sediqa, thought to be in her early twenties, fled her village with another man, when she realised the "fiancé" who bought her was old and already married. Neighbours said the man, who has not been named, paid between £5,000-£7,500, a huge sum for an impoverished rural family but nonetheless plausible after many years of rising prices for brides in a society riven by the practice.

Gruesome footage of Sediqa's execution, captured on a mobile phone, was broadcast around the world last week, sparking an international outcry.

Yet, despite widespread condemnation and a pledge from Afghan president Hamid Karzai to bring the killers to justice, just one person has been arrested.

A local elder, who spoke to Sediqa's neighbours in Mullah Quli village for The Scotsman yesterday, said she threatened to kill herself when she found what her father had done.

"Sediqa's father sold her to a man who was already married," said Juma Qol, who witnessed the executions last August. "Her neighbours said this man was a distant relative and he had visited their house a few times, but Sediqa didn't realise he was her fiancé. She did not know that her father had sold her and she didn't know that the man was already married."…

The couple spent just three nights away. Some neighbours said they fled to Kabul, others said they had gone to Pakistan, until their parents persuaded them to return with a guarantee that they would not be harmed and that they would be allowed to marry.

Instead, they were arrested by the Taleban, tried in front of four fundamentalist clerics, and stoned to death the next day. Although neither family had close links to the insurgents, the elders said Sediqa's parents approached the Taleban in [a] bid to save face.