Killing of Hamed Sabouri

Hamed Sabouri was a 22-year-old gay medical student from Kabul, Afghanistan. According to local activists who spoke to PinkNews on 12 October 2022, Sabouri was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered by Taliban members in August 2022. His family and friends later received a video depicting his torture and killing. The Washington Blade reported on 14 October 2022 that a source inside Afghanistan said Sabouri had been detained at one of the many Taliban checkpoints in Kabul, and that content found on his cell phone was a likely cause for his arrest.

On 18 October 2022, The Guardian published a detailed account, including testimony from Sabouri's brother, Haseeb, and his boyfriend, identified as Bahar. Haseeb confirmed the family received the video of the killing and said they fled Afghanistan for Turkey after selling their properties in Kabul, citing daily harassment and threats from the Taliban. Bahar, a member of the underground LGBTQ+ organization Behesht Collective, described Sabouri as "the love of [his] life" and said he had gone into hiding since the killing. Bahar told The Guardian he had been arrested and raped by the Taliban three times between August 2021 and June 2022, and that he would be killed if arrested again; he described evading arrest by bribing police and hiding in a garbage truck. Business Insider reported that it verified footage showing a man resembling Sabouri being shot in the neck and head at least 12 times.

The killing occurred against a backdrop of intensified persecution of LGBTQ+ Afghans following the Taliban takeover in August 2021. Rainbow Railroad reported in November 2021 that the Taliban was applying a strict interpretation of Sharia law and maintaining "kill lists" targeting LGBTQ+ people. Afghan LGBTQ+ rights activist Nemat Sadat said Sabouri's death reflected inaction by Western governments and evidenced a Taliban effort to "eradicate all gay people from Afghanistan." Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid denied Taliban responsibility, stating there was "no truth" in The Guardian's report.

A separate controversy arose after The Guardian's original article used a photograph of a man later identified as Safiullah Ahmadi, an Afghan man living in Iran who said he was not gay and was not Sabouri. The photo was removed roughly 12 hours after publication. Ahmadi later returned to Afghanistan in March 2023 and, through his lawyer, said he had been forced into hiding out of fear that the mistaken publication would put him at risk. Ahmadi brought a defamation claim in the High Court of Justice seeking more than £100,000 in damages. On 16 May 2025, Judge Jeremy Johnson dismissed the claim, ruling that an allegation of homosexuality was not defamatory given societal progress, that a foreign penal code (the Afghan Penal Code 2018) did not apply in England and Wales, and that a reasonable reader would understand the use of Ahmadi's image was a mistake, since Ahmadi is not gay, not a medical student, and alive.