Afghanistan's top court has sentenced three people, including an anti-Taleban commander, to death for the massacre of 11 Chinese engineers as they slept in tents in north-east Afghanistan in June, a court official said Saturday.
Four men were convicted over the slaughter of the Chinese, who were helping to rebuild a road in the normally quiet province of Kunduz, and three were sentenced to death late Wednesday, supreme court spokesman Waheed Mujda said.
"Three men were sentenced to death by the court Wednesday," Mujda told AFP.
The convicted trio were General Mohammad Akbar, a former anti-Taleban commander of the Northern Alliance coalition, Gul Mohammed and Mohammed Asif.
Akbar was identified as the ringleader of the killers.
Asif's father, Ahmad Khan, was found guilty as an accessory for failing to report the massacre to police, and was sentenced to two years in jail.
Mujda said the four could appeal against their conviction and sentence.
Details of the motive for the crime and the planned date of executions were not immediately available.
A campaign of attacks on foreign and Afghan road workers, aid workers and troops has been blamed on or claimed by insurgents loyal to Afghanistan's former Taleban rulers. The Taleban denied any involvement in the massacre.