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Afghan attorney general reopens Kabul Bank scandal investigation

By GNA
International Kabul Bank
OCT 3, 2014 LISTEN
Kabul Bank

Kabul, Oct. 2, (dpa/GNA) - The AfghanAttorney General's Office confirmed Thursday reopening a multi-million-dollarbank fraud case after the country's newly-elected president ordered aninvestigation into a 2010 scandal that almost brought the financial sector tocollapse.

 
"We have been working on the Kabul Bankcase intensively since Wednesday," said Attorney General's Officespokesman Basir Azizi.

 
Kabul Bank, the biggest private Afghan bank,went under in 2010 after media reports exposed the misappropriation of morethan 900 million dollars.

 
"Some of the accused have fled thecountry and we are making efforts to get them back to the country as soon aspossible," Azizi said Thursday.

 
President Ashraf Ghani issued a decree onWednesday to reopen the case, ordering the Attorney General's Office to arrestthe suspects within three days and keep them in detention until the courtinvestigation is fully concluded.

 
Afghanistan's corruption watchdog has calledthe scandal "one of the largest banking failures in the world."

 
Ghani's order comes as he moves to fulfilhis campaign pledge to make fighting corruption a priority.

 
"As a first step, based on our promiseto take action against administrative corruption, today the Kabul Bank casewill be reopened and an investigation will be launched," Ghani toldreporters in Kabul.

 
"We promised to combat corruptioncomprehensively, on a full scale and in a principled manner," he said.

 
The government was forced to bail out thebank. Most of those convicted were never arrested, and the Attorney General'sOffice said that just 184 million dollars has been recollected so far.

 
A special court convicted Kabul Bank founderand former-chairman Sher Khan Farnood and former-chief executive Haji KhalilFerozi of taking 810 million dollars of the 935 million dollars stolen from thebank.

 
They were both sentenced to jail for fiveyears, but the order was not implemented.

 
The brothers of both ex-president HamidKarzai and his first vice-president Marshal Fahim, both bank shareholders, werespared prosecution thanks to a Karzai decree that granted immunity for thosewho returned the funds.

 
Afghanistan is one of the most corruptnations in the world, according to Transparency International.

 
GNA

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