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The report said the Afghan attorney general's office recently asked for international assistance in tracking the funds abroad but the request was limited to help from four countries
-- Switzerland, France, Britain and India -- for information on funds tied to the former top two bank executives. The report also criticizes the attorney general's office for not undertaking a substantial probe into the bank until April 2011
-- a year after the news of the bank's problems surfaced, eight months after nervous customers ran to withdraw deposits and five months after the central bank had asked the attorney general's office to start a criminal investigation. The indictment names more than 20 bank executives, bank employees, central bank workers and others who allegedly benefited from the fraud. The charges include money laundering, misuse of authority, using counterfeit documents and opening accounts under pseudonyms. But the report claims the indictment is tainted by political influence. "Information received during the inquiry indicates that the final decision about who to indict was made at the political level in the spring of 2011 by a high-ranking (Afghan) committee
-- and that prosecutors from the attorney general's office were called in to amend the indictment to conform to the decisions taken," the report said. Basir Azizi, a spokesman for the attorney general's office, said Tuesday that the Kabul Bank case was not treated as a political issue. "We strongly reject any comments that the attorney general's office dealt with this case as a political issue," he said. The committee also is critical of the special tribunal that Karzai created to hear the case. The report said the tribunal has had off-the-record meetings with accused individuals and potential witnesses, has conducted its own probes on the sidelines and has held meetings with shareholders, urging them to repay money
-- a job tasked to the receivership. As of Oct. 31, the receivership has recovered $135.3 million in cash as well as assets with a book value of $181.1 million, according to the committee. The report gives the Afghan central bank credit for carrying out various examinations of the bank, saying it tried to take enforcement measures or corrective actions four times after consistently spotting regulatory violations. But the committee said that unless the central bank and other Afghan institutions move to operate independently, stand up to political interference and hold wrongdoers accountable, the Afghan government will never be able to sustain a fully functioning democracy. The report said $861 million, or 92 percent of Kabul Bank's loan book, went to 19 individuals and companies. Among them are key bank shareholders, including Sherkhan Farnood, the former bank chairman and a world-class poker player, former chief executive officer Khalilullah Ferozi, and the brothers of Karzai and first Vice President Mohammad Qasim Fahim. Other bank funds -- an estimated $66 million -- were spent on lavish expenses, cars, rent, bonuses, salary advances and salaries for employees that did not exist
In 2009, the central bank advised Afghan banks to refrain from making political contributions in the presidential campaign. "This letter was not enough to dissuade Kabul Bank, which reportedly provided millions of dollars to the campaign of at least one presidential candidate
-- in addition to dozens of cars, and payment of the entire media campaign including billboards and television advertisements," the report said.
[Associated
Press;
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