How accused individuals escape justice via corruption

KABUL (SW): What you are going to read is a documented study of how corruption has institutionalized in the legal system of the country.

Corruption has poisoned the judicial institutions in Afghanistan. It has metastasized in almost all government institutions, and there seems no institution to either take responsibility for countering it or contain it.

According to Salam Watandar’s findings, Shafiqullah Ebrahimkhail, head of foreign national’s affairs at the ID department in the Ministry of Interior, was arrested by the Criminal Investigative Department (CID) on 15, Feb, 2015 for taking bribe but was released after just five days.

A video clip shows Fawad Folad, a prosecutor at the West zone’s attorney office coming to Ibrahimkhail’s office along with criminal investigative personnel at 10:37 in the morning and takes out $ 600 from the drawer of a desk belonging to Ibrahimkhail.

He then matches the serial number of the bills with the ones he had with himself and after they match, he arrests Ibrahimkhail.

Ibrahimkheyl said in his initial statement that his friend introduced someone to him and asked him to resolve his problem at the Ministry of Interior.

According to Ibrahimkhail, he asked one of his contacts at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to solve his problem but the contact asked for $ 600 in return for solving the problem.

Another evidence however, suggests that a man named Toryali son of Nabi has complained to the Kabul Criminal Investigation Department (CID) that he along with three others went to the ID department to get ID but the head of foreign national affairs department (Ibrahimkhail) asked for $ 600 as bribe.

When the corruption case of Ibrahimkhail was sent to the Counter Corruption Department, Ibrahimkhail said that the statements (pictured above) was not written by him but when the case was referred to the primary court, he claimed that the $ 600 was the money he had lent to someone and he returned it back to him.

The Attorney General found him not guilty and was set free. The footage, which shows how he was arrested was not even sent to the court. This report shows how widespread corruption has engulfed Afghanistan’s judicial organs. The lenient approaches some prosecutors and judges take towards some cases are both questionable and unfortunate.

ENDS