DHAKA: Five Afghan men have been executed for gang-raping four women, in a case that has sparked national outrage.

Officials say the men were executed in Pul-e-Charkhi prison east of Kabul. A sixth man convicted of unrelated crimes was also hanged.

The authorities ignored last-minute appeals for clemency from rights groups who said the convictions were unsafe.

Violence against women in Afghanistan is rife but correspondents say cases rarely attract this much attention.

The rapes took place in Paghman district near Kabul in August. The women were returning from a wedding.

Many Afghans demanded the death penalty. Former President Hamid Karzai signed the death warrants on his last day in office.

‘The court’s verdict has been implemented and all the convicts have been executed - five from the Paghman case, plus Habib Istalifi, who was head of a notorious kidnapping gang,’ the attorney general’s chief-of-staff Atta Mohammad Noori told media reports the BBC.

There was no word from new president Ashraf Ghani, who took over from Karzai in September.

BDST: 1842 HRS, OCT 08, 2014