By Omed Zaheermal & Hamed Kohistani
Acting ministers in corruption net The High Office of Oversight and Anti-corruption (HOOAC) has sent 355 dossiers to the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) that includes 21 dossiers of high ranking officials including acting ministers in the new government.
Rashid Tota Khel, the head of secretariat in HOOAC, says 1,604 complaints were received since 2008 and all were registered. Investigations were completed, and 355 cases of corruption sent to the AGO “for prosecution”. According to him, 30 dossiers have been handed over to the government cases department in the Ministry of Justice.
Cases of corruption have been identified against 21 top government officials including “8 to 10 ministers, 3 to 4 of them are working as acting ministers as well”, Rashid told Killid in an interview. He says corruption charges have been made against ministers, deputy ministers, members of parliament (MPs), governors, mayors. “I cannot give their names under the law,” he points out.
Meanwhile, Basir Azizi, spokesman for the AGO, told the media last month that investigations into five ministers of ex-president Hamid Karzai have been referred to the Supreme Court.
The five ministers are accused of embezzlement and misuse of power. The accused are Mohammad Amin Farhang, former minister for trade and commerce; Enayatullah Qasimi and Hamidullah Qaderi, former transport ministers; Mohammad Sediq Eshan, former minister for Mines and Industries; and Jalil Shams, former minister for Economy.
Basir Azizi said a special court would be constituted as required under the Constitution.
Ongoing investigations
However these may not be all. “We have dossiers on others ministers as well, and are investigating,” he told Killid.
Former minister Farhang has rejected the corruption charge. “Levelling these types of accusations before a trial is character assassination,” he charged in a press conference. “I will present my defence at the proper time with authentic documentary evidence to reject the accusations against me.”
Former mines minister Eshan challenged the corruption charge, and said no contract was signed while he was minister. “There are no grounds for embezzlement,” he said.
A Killid investigative report in 2010 revealed corruption charges were made against 20 high-level officials. Rahmatullah Nazari, then deputy attorney general had confirmed there were ministers, deputy ministers, ambassadors, governors and other government authorities in the list.
Our investigations revealed names: Mohammad Sidiq Chakari, ex-minister of Haj and Religious Affairs; Hamidullah Qaderi and Enayatullah Qasimi, both former transport ministers; Farhang, former trade and commerce minister; Nader Artesh, former director of Ariana Airlines; and, Abdul Ahad, the former Kabul mayor.
Court officials were not prepared to talk on the progress on corruption cases. Abdullah Atayee, the administrative manager of the judicial service told a press conference on Oct 14 that there were no pending cases in the Supreme Court. According to Atayee, the trial is held within two months, and the appeal can be made two months later. The case goes before the Supreme Court after five months. “It often happens that the juridical organs send incomplete dossiers. When we send them for additional information, they complain that they capture the accused, and the court releases them,” says Atayee.
Kabul Bank
Meanwhile, the appeal court has sent back the file on the Kabul Bank to the AGO citing problems with the investigation. Last week, Sidiqullah Haqiq, chief justice of the Kabul Appellate Court told Radio Azadi last week that there are areas in the files that require more investigation by the AGO.
There is insufficient evidence regarding amounts taken as loans from the bank, clearance, properties it owns, among other things that the AGO has failed to do enough research on.
Only three weeks ago the AGO had sent the dossiers on individuals accused of corruption in the multi-million dollar scam that brought down Afghanistan’s biggest private bank.
“The previous defects and investigative vacuum in the dossiers have not been amended so the dossiers were sent again to the AGO so they can act according to the order that has been sent for the purposes of a just decision,” said Justice Haqiq.
AGO spokesman Azizi said the dossier has been sent “four times” to the AGOs office. “We are again ready to send the dossier of the Kabul Bank to the appeal court. I would like to add the file has been sent four times to the AGO,” he stated.
New Afghan President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai who ordered the reopening of the Kabul Bank case within days of his swearing-in, has promised a full probe within 90 days.
Afghan president in his first days of work just and judicial organs ordered to solve the case of Kabul bank within one and half month.
The Bank collapsed in 2010 under a mountain of fraudulent loans and kickbacks amounting to some 900 million USD. In March last year, 19 people including the bank’s founder were convicted in the case. Seventeen of them were released on bail.
The mentioned 21 individuals had been convicted by court on different years of imprisonments as 19 of them except director and assistant director were released instead of guarantee.
General Zahir Zahir, security commander of Kabul, said seven of the accused were rearrested, but the rest have to be tracked down.