Kabul, May 04: The trial of a former civil servant accused of carrying hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from Saudi Arabia for a government minister in Afghanistan opened on Monday.
Mohammad Noor worked as an aide to a former minister for hajj and religious affairs who is charged with taking bribes from a foreign catering company during last year’s Hajj pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia.
Prosecutors say the former civil servant collected the bribe money for his boss, former minister Mohammad Siddiq Chakari, and took it back to Afghanistan. He was arrested on arrival at the airport with 362,000 dollars.
“Mohammad Noor was responsible for finalising criminal deals, collecting the bribe money and transfering it to specific individuals,” prosecutor Mohammad Razaq Totakhail told the court in Kabul.
Totakhail said Noor had confessed to taking more than half a million dollars in bribe money to Chakari on previous trips.
Official corruption is endemic in impoverished, war-torn Afghanistan and Noor’s trial is seen as important ground work for bringing Chakari — currently in Britain — to justice.
Afghan authorities have issued an arrest warrant for Chakari and are seeking his extradition on corruption charges.
In court, Noor admitted carrying money from Saudi Arabia to Kabul for Chakari, but said that he did not know where it had come from.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has made a corruption crackdown one of his top priorities and has established a special tribunal to try corrupt officials, including ministers.
–PTI