Trail of Fraud and Vengeance Leads to Kabul Bank Convictions
Shah Marai/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Sherkhan Farnood, the Kabul Bank founder, in court Tuesday. He had told American investigators about fraud.
Concern over Kabul Bank scandal sentences
EMMA GRAHAM-HARRISON, in Kabul
Two key players in the $900 million (€690 million) Kabul Bank scandal in Afghanistan have been sentenced to just five years in prison each, a relatively light sentence that will fuel concerns about government indifference to rampant corruption in the country.
The judges baffled observers with a last-minute change in the charges against the men, dropping allegations of embezzlement, forgery, money-laundering and other serious offences in favour of “breach of trust”, which has a shorter maximum sentence.
Kabul Bank nearly collapsed in 2010, and has been described by western officials as virtually a Ponzi scheme.
In addition to their prison time, the chairman, Sherkhan Farnood, and chief executive, Khalilullah Ferozi, have been ordered to pay back a combined total of more than $800 million. But the new charges will make it far harder to claw back the stolen cash from offshore accounts and other hiding places. A money-laundering conviction would have brought an automatic confiscation order, but experts say the three judges issued a much weaker demand for return of goods obtained illegally.
“International standards require sanctions that are proportionate, dissuasive and effective. We feel that this is lacking in the judgment,” said Drago Kos, chairman of the joint Afghan and international anti-corruption committee, which organised a public inquiry into the crisis last year.
The brothers of Afghan president Hamid Karzai, and vice-president Mohammad Fahim, were among the bank’s shareholders, although they have not been prosecuted, and handling of the high-profile case has been seen by the international community as a “litmus test” of Kabul’s desire to rein in corruption. – (Guardian service)
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