The only suspect arrested in the case of an Afghan woman who had her ears and nose cut off after attempting to escape an arranged marriage has been released, according to local officials. The suspect was the father-in-law of the young woman, Bibi Aisha, whose husband is a Taliban commander. The girl’s father claims he and two brothers-in-law held her down as her husband cut her with the approval of the local Taliban mullah. “We don’t know who released him. We don’t know at all,” said the father. “It’s either government weakness or our weakness. We don’t have money to pay the government and we don’t have someone in the government to support us.” The girl is now safe in New York, but the case points to a bigger problem with the Afghan justice system.
