A lawyer for eight detained foreign aid workers accused of spreading Christianity in Afghanistan left Pakistan for Kabul on Friday to attend the next session of their trial set for Saturday, a German diplomat said. Helmut Landes told Reuters that he had been informed by Afghanistan's ruling Taliban Foreign Ministry that the trial would resume on Saturday.
"He (the lawyer) is on his way to Kabul... he left this morning," Landes said.
The foreign aid workers -- two Americans, two Australians and four Germans -- and their 16 Afghan colleagues were detained in early August on charges of spreading Christianity.
They all worked for the German-based Shelter Now International (SNI) aid group, shut down by the Taliban at the time of the arrests.
The group's director, Georg Taubman, in his first appearance in the Taliban supreme court this month denied the charges, saying they had not converted a single Afghan Muslim to Christianity.
That is an offence punishable by death under strict Taliban rules.
Landes said the Pakistani lawyer, Atif Ali, left from the North West Frontier Province capital, Peshawar, for Kabul through the historic Khyber pass route.
Taliban embassy officials said Atif Ali and another lawyer had been issued visas and a letter of safe passage to enable them to go to Kabul.
The Taliban last week moved the foreign workers to what they said was a safer location in the wake of possible strikes by the United States, angry at the Taliban's refusal to surrender Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden.
The United States says bin Laden is a prime suspect in the deadly suicide attacks in New York and Washington on September 11. President George W. Bush has promised to hunt down bin Laden and punish all those who protect him.
The eight are Americans Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer, Australians Peter Bunch and Diana Thomas, and Germans Georg Taubmann, Katrin Jelinek, Margrit Stebner and Silke Durrkopf.
The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court told Reuters this week that all the eight detainees were well. The status of the Afghan detainees was not known.