ONE OF THE founders of the Taliban has said the hard-line movement will once again carry out executions and amputations of hands, though perhaps not in public.

Mullah Nooruddin Turabi dismissed outrage over the Taliban’s executions in the past, which sometimes took place in front of crowds at a stadium, and warned the world against interfering.

Turabi was the chief enforcer of its harsh interpretation of Islamic law when they last ruled Afghanistan

“Everyone criticised us for the punishments in the stadium, but we have never said anything about their laws and their punishments,” he told The Associated Press, speaking in Kabul. “No one will tell us what our laws should be. We will follow Islam and we will make our laws on the Quran.”

Since the Taliban seized control of the country in August, Afghans have been watching to see whether they will recreate their harsh rule of the late 1990s. Turabi’s comments suggest the group’s leaders remain entrenched in a deeply conservative, hard-line worldview, even as they embrace video and mobile phones.

In his early 60s, he was justice minister and head of the so-called Ministry of Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice — effectively, the religious police — during the Taliban’s previous rule.

At that time, the world denounced the Taliban’s punishments, which took place in Kabul’s sports stadium or on the grounds of the Eid Gah mosque.

Executions of convicted murderers were usually by a single shot to the head, carried out by the victim’s family, who had the option of accepting “blood money” and allowing the culprit to live. For convicted thieves, the punishment was amputation of a hand. For those convicted of highway robbery, a hand and a foot were amputated.

Trials and convictions were rarely public and the judiciary was weighted in favour of Islamic clerics. Turabi said that this time, judges — including women — would adjudicate cases, but the same punishments would be revived.

“Cutting off of hands is very necessary for security,” he said.

Taliban fighters have revived a punishment they commonly used in the past — public shaming of men accused of small-time theft.

On at least two occasions in the past week, Kabul men have been packed into the back of a pickup truck, their hands tied, and been paraded around to humiliate them.

In one case, their faces were painted to identify them as thieves. In the other, stale bread was hung from their necks or stuffed in their mouth. It wasn’t clear what their crimes were.