Afghan President Hamid Karzai fired his most senior prosecutor for persisting to investigate high-level corrupt Afghan officials according to Dexter Filkins in the New York Times. Fazel Ahmed Faqiryar, the former deputy attorney general, claimed President Karzai had obstructed investigations and prosecutions of 25 or more senior officials — including cabinet ministers, ambassadors and provincial governors.
“We propose investigations, detentions and prosecutions of high government officials, but we cannot resist him,” Mr. Faqiryar said of Mr. Karzai on Sunday. “He won’t sign anything. We have great, honest and professional prosecutors here, but we need support.”
Earlier this month Mr. Karzai committed another abuse of Presidential power when he directly intervened to win the quick release of senior aide Mohammad Zia Salehi who had been arrested for soliciting a bribe to impede an American-backed investigation of a money-laundering company called New Ansari.
Mr. Faqiryar said he and the other prosecutors in his office were “demoralized” by Mr. Karzai and Attorney General Mohammed Ishaq Aloko’s refusals to allow them to move against these corrupt senior leaders.
Mr. Faqiryar’s open cases include 17 members of Mr. Karzai’s cabinet, 5 provincial governors and at least 3 ambassadors. Some of these cases have been blocked on orders specifically emanating from Mr. Karzai himself.
Mr. Faqiryar, a 72-year-old career prosecutor, said Karzai fired him on Wednesday after the President saw one of Mr. Faqiryar’s mid-level prosecutors talk about public corruption on an Afghan television station.
Tensions have existed between him and Karzai ever since Faqiryar infuriated the President by standing before Afghan’s Parliament last year and reading aloud a list of 25 Afghan officials who were under investigation for corruption – a list that included some of the most senior officials in Mr. Karzai’s government.
So far, only three of the 25 Afghan officials have even been charged, yet none have been rendered a verdict. The other 22 cases are on hold for inexplicable reasons.
One of the most serious cases involves the governor of Kapisa Province, Khoja Ghulam Ghaws, appointed by Mr. Karzai in 2007. Prosecutors have enough evidence to charge Mr. Ghaws with colluding with insurgents and demanding kickbacks from contractors. Governor Ghaws is also a prime suspect in the slaughter of five members of a provincial reconstruction team last year.
Earlier this year it was learned that Mr. Karzai’s family had their fingerprints on Taliban blood and drug money:
On Jan. 14 a U.S.-trained special task force raided the headquarters of money transfer company New Ansari Exchange and discovered that New Ansari was helping to launder profits from the illicit opium trade and moved Taliban money that had been earned through extortion and drug trafficking. The crime unit also found links between the money transfers and some of the most powerful political and business figures in the country, including relatives of Mr. Karzai.
Much of the New Ansari cash was primarily being couriered from Kabul and Kandahar to Dubai, where many Afghan officials maintain second homes and live in splendor. Mr. Aloko has blocked the arrest of Hajji Rafi Azimi, the vice chairman of the Afghan United Bank and a key figure in the New Ansari case.
This week alone currency counters were being installed at the Kabul airport to trace bills to see if billions of dollars of foreign aid was being diverted to feed the drug trade. Authorities also want to eliminate the practice of allowing government officials and other well-connected figures from boarding planes with suitcases packed with undeclared cash.
And in a not-too-transparent effort to consolidate power and control anticorruption forces that threaten Karzai, the government announced new rules to rein in American-backed enforcement agencies. Meanwhile, a former American ambassador to Kabul admitted that Afghan President Hamid Karzai relied on corruption to survive politically.
The anticorruption campaign against Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s administration has become a web even more tangled because crooked elements within the Karzai regime are being paid off by the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.), according to Afghan and American officials.
After a 48-year career, Mr. Faqiryar said he was actually looking forward to retirement:
“It’s good to be away from them and not held accountable for their wrongdoings.”
Other Karzai Corruption Articles:
Karzai aide on C.I.A. payroll complicates anticorruption efforts
Karzai relies on corruption for survival according to former ambassador
Corruption in Kabul: Noose tightens around Karzai regime
Karzai's corrupt sibling compromises the mission in Afghanistan
CIA and KGB solution for Afghanistan: Get Rid of Karzai
Afghanistan's Opium War: Corrupt government officials empower Taliban
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