Reports from Afghanistan say that three men convicted of murder have been publicly executed by relatives of their victims who rejected an offer of blood money from a Saudi Arabian diplomat.

The diplomat, based at the Saudi embassy in Kabul, is reported to have offered more than five-thousand dollars to save the men's lives.

But the relatives chose their right under the Taleban interpretation of Islamic Sharia law to carry out the death sentences themselves.

They shot the convicted men dead in front of a crowd of onlookers in a Kabul stadium.