Karzai fired me to cover up graft cases,says prosecutor

One of the countrys most senior prosecutors said Saturday that President Hamid Karzai fired him last week after he repeatedly refused to block corruption investigations at the highest levels of Karzais government....

One of the countrys most senior prosecutors said Saturday that President Hamid Karzai fired him last week after he repeatedly refused to block corruption investigations at the highest levels of Karzais government.

Fazel Ahmed Faqiryar,the former deputy attorney general,said investigations of more than two dozen senior Afghan officials including Cabinet ministers,ambassadors and provincial governors were being held up or blocked outright by Karzai,Attorney General Mohammed Ishaq Aloko and others.

Faqiryars account of the troubles plaguing the anticorruption investigations,which Karzais office disputed,has been largely corroborated in interviews with five Western officials familiar with the cases. They say Karzai and others in his government have repeatedly thwarted prosecutions against senior Afghan government figures.

An US official,speaking on the condition of anonymity,said that Afghan prosecutors had prepared several cases against officials suspected of corruption,but that Karzai was stalling and stalling and stalling. We propose investigations,detentions and prosecutions of high government officials,but we cannot resist him, Faqiryar said of Karzai. He wont sign anything. We have great,honest and professional prosecutors here,but we need support.

This month,Karzai intervened to stop the prosecution of one of his closest aides,Mohammed Zia Salehi,who investigators say had been wiretapped demanding a bribe from another Afghan seeking his help in scuttling a corruption investigation.

Karzais chief of staff disputed Faqiryars characterisation of the Presidents involvement,saying that the President had instructed the prosecutors to move cases forward appropriately. I strongly deny that the President has been in any way obstructing the investigations of these cases, said the chief of staff,Umer Daudzai. On the contrary,he has done his bit in all these cases,and it is his job to make sure that the justice is not politicised. And,unfortunately we see in some of these cases that it is politicised. Aloko did not respond to requests for comment on Saturday. Salehi could not be reached for comment.

Faqiryar said he and the other prosecutors in his office were demoralised by the repeated refusal of Karzai and Aloko to allow them to move against corrupt Afghan leaders. Faqiryar said his prosecutors had opened cases on at least 25 current or former Afghan officials,including 17 members of Karzais Cabinet,5 provincial governors and at least 3 ambassadors. None of the cases,he said,have gone forward,and some have been blocked on orders from Karzai.