Afghan AG: Afghans Should Investigate  09/09 05:24

   KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Afghanistan's top prosecutor said Thursday that 
while President Hamid Karzai backs the work of Western-supported 
anti-corruption teams, he wants investigations to be led by Afghans and free of 
interference from international advisers.

   New rules are being drafted to regulate the activities of two investigative 
units probing corruption, which has undermined public trust in Karzai's 
government and its efforts to win the loyalty of many Afghans and pull them 
away from the Taliban.

   Although Karzai has promised to let the investigative units operate 
independently, U.S. officials fear the president will use the new rules to rein 
in or derail corruption probes of top officials.

   "The foreigners cannot make decisions," Attorney General Mohammad Ishaq 
Aloko said. "They can't give orders to do this, or do that. They can't 
interfere to say 'capture this person' or 'release that person.'"

   He said that Karzai wants the role of Western mentors to be restricted to 
logistics, training and consultation. He said the rules were being reviewed at 
the Ministry of Justice and could take weeks to finalize.

   U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, a Democrat from Washington state, issued a statement 
Wednesday saying that any effort by Karzai to limit international assistance in 
anti-corruption investigations was a mistake.

   "President Karzai must take a zero-tolerance stance against corruption to 
ensure the Taliban is the enemy and not a choice," said Larsen, who recently 
visited Afghanistan.

   U.S. and British advisers insist they are not directing cases, only 
mentoring prosecutors and investigators at Afghanistan's Major Crimes Task 
Force and Sensitive Investigative Unit.

   Karzai, however, suspects the Western advisers are heavily influencing 
anti-corruption cases. Karzai was angered by the recent arrest of one of his 
close aides, Mohammad Zia Salehi, the chief of administration for Afghanistan's 
National Security Council. Salehi, who has not been formally charged, was 
arrested in July for allegedly accepting a car in exchange for his help in 
thwarting another corruption case involving a company that handles huge money 
transfers worldwide. Karzai quickly ordered his release.

   Western law enforcement officials who advised on the case said investigators 
followed Afghan law in taking Salehi into custody for questioning. Karzai 
insisted that Salehi's civil rights were violated in the pre-dawn arrest that 
he described as reminiscent "of the Soviet Union, where people were taken away 
from their homes by armed people in the name of the state."

   During a visit to Afghanistan last month, U.S. Sen. John Kerry, chairman of 
the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he told Karzai that his 
effort to battle corruption was crucial if he wanted to retain the support of 
U.S. taxpayers at a time when more American troops are dying in the war and the 
American economy is weak.

   U.S. lawmakers, who are expressing doubt that the military effort can 
succeed without a serious campaign against bribery and graft, have been 
anxiously waiting to see whether Karzai would rein in the anti-corruption 
investigators.

   While the Karzai government has said that it is working to define the units' 
legal status, the president said in a statement that he and Kerry agreed that 
they "would always operate as independent sovereign Afghan entities, run by 
Afghans, allowed to pursue their mission of enhancing transparency and 
combating corruption, free from foreign interference or political influence."


(CZ)