Special court created to hear Kabul Bank case

KABUL (Pajhwok): The Supreme Court has created a special court to address cases of individuals involved in the Kabul Bank scandal, the Attorney General’s Office said on Wednesday.

AGO spokesman Basir Azizi told a news conference in Kabul the special court’s creation was aimed at accelerating the judicial inquiry into the bigtime banking scam.

Meanwhile, Kabul Court of Appeal Judge  Sadiqullah Haqiq said the court had returned documents of convicts in Kabul Bank case to the AGO due to some technical problems.

Haqiq added the documents were returned because they lacked the exact amounts of money stolen from the bank and the sums recovered from defaulters. The dossiers had other problems as well and needed further investigations.

At the press conference, AGO spokesman Azizi said the government had two objectivs to achieve by solving the Kabul Bank case. “One is to recover the stolen money and the second to punish those involved,” he said.

He said President Ahmadzai had directed the AGO to investigate the Kabul Bank scandal that once left the national economy struggling.

Azizi said the Kabul Bank case had two sides — commercial and criminal — both subjudice in the business court and the court of appeal.

He said the AGO had restricted properties belonging to Khalil Ferozi,  the bank’s former CEO, and Sher Khan Farnood, the founder, from selling or buying. He said the AGO had proven properties bought with the stolen money as national assets.

Farnood and Ferozi had been convicted by the Special Kabul Bank Tribunal, which was created under a decree by the former president, Hamid Karzai, and sentenced them to five years in jail.

Revelations of massive corruption led to a run on the bank in 2010 when the multi-million dollar fraud almost caused the national economy to collapse.

Azizi warned the convicts living abroad had been asked to return and face the court, otherwise they would be forced through governments of the countries they lived in to hand them over to Afghan authorities.

“Those refusing to arrive at the court should not think the law will change in future; they must return the money and face legal punishment,” he said.

Soon after being sworn in last month, President Ahmadzai ordered the reopening of the Kabul Bank case and solving it within a month and and a half.

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