KABUL — American officials are pressing the Afghan government to prosecute a former governor for what US investigators say is involvement in the killings of an American lieutenant colonel and a US servicewoman, as well as other alleged crimes.
President Hamid Karzai’s administration has rejected requests to prosecute Ghulam Qawis Abu Bakr for the killings and for alleged corruption, saying evidence is lacking. Abu Bakr, who remains a power broker in his province of Kapisa just north of Kabul, has denied the US allegations.
Karzai, who appointed Abu Bakr as governor in 2007 and removed him three years later, has declared the Abu Bakr case to be closed.
The US still considers pursuing the former governor a priority for Afghan law enforcement, US officials say. “As far as we are concerned, the case is still open,” a senior US official said.
Details of US findings about Abu Bakr have not been previously disclosed. US investigators allege Abu Bakr ordered the May 2009 suicide bombing that killed Air Force Lt. Col. Mark Stratton, 39, and Senior Airman Ashton Goodman, a 21-year-old servicewoman working with him, according to a summary of the investigation, shown to The Wall Street Journal by the investigators.
The report also alleges that Abu Bakr plotted to kill US, French and British ambassadors that November, and that he was involved in acts of extortion and corruption.
Abu Bakr denies the allegations and does not wish to speak to the media, said his son-in-law, Mohammed Iqbal Safi, a member of Afghanistan’s parliament. Safi said rival government officials were trying to frame his father-in-law, and have “poisoned the Americans’ minds.”
Appointed as governor by Karzai in 2007, Abu Bakr is a former mujahedeen commander affiliated with the Hezb-i-Islami movement founded by warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Abu Bakr has met regularly with senior Hezb-i-Islami insurgent commanders in Kapisa, providing them with weapons, police vehicles and lists of people cooperating with coalition troops, according to investigators.
Many prominent members of Hezb-i-Islami have chosen to join Karzai’s administration, saying they have split from the insurgent wing of the group.
“Abu Bakr is being protected because he is connected with the political parties that represent power — in this case, Hezb-i-Islami,” says Jean d’Amécourt, the former ambassador of France, which oversees security in Kapisa.
Karzai’s chief spokesman, Aimal Faizi, said Abu Bakr “is not protected by anyone in the Afghan government,” adding that “we find such allegations and accusations baseless.”