Malala Yousafzai has shown immense bravery in the years since she was shot in the head for daring to want to go to school and talk about girls’ right to an education. And officials from her home country, Pakistan, were very righteous about having jailed 10 Taliban men for 25 years each for the attempted murder of the then-14-year-old.
However, something seems to be amiss as a ‘senior security force’ in Pakistan has saying to *The Mirror*that officials have lied over the trial and that eight of the 10 would-be killers have been released from prison ‘quietly, to avoid a media fuss.’
‘The trial had absolutely no credibility as nobody was there to witness it but a public prosecutor, a judge, the army and the accused.’
‘This was a tactic to get the media pressure away from the Malala case because the whole world wanted convictions for the crime.’
‘But the truth is that, whether these acquitted men were involved or not in the Malala shooting, the public has been lied to. Ten men are not behind bars for the crime, as the Pakistani authorities would have us believe. That is a big lie.’
The Mirror then contacted Azaad Khan, the police chief of Swat Valley – where Malala was shot – to confirm this, and he said ‘Two were convicted and eight acquitted’. Which flies in the face of swat officials saying just last month that all 10 men were imprisoned.
So at this point the secret acquittal of these men isn’t only a lie, but severely fucked up. Because not only does it send a message to everyone that you can plan to kill a young girl and get away with it, but it means there are eight men out there still baying for the blood of girls who dare to, you know, go to school.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.