Afghani democracy in action - Hamid Karzai signs Presidential pardon for rape of mother by warlord's gangsters

An Afghani couple Dilwar and his wife Sara lost there son had their son taken away.

Sara accused a local warlord commander of the boys disappearance. She was gang-raped, knifed with a bayonet and left half naked to find her way home.

A fuller story is provided about this case here . The men were freed discreetly but the rape itself was public and brutal. It took place in September 2005, in the run up to Afghanistan’s first democratic (?) parliamentary elections.

The most powerful local commander, Mawlawi Islam, was running for office despite being accused of scores of murders committed while he had been a mujahedeen commander in the 1980s and a Taliban governor in the 1990s, and since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Sara said one of his sub-commanders and body guards had been looking for young men to help in the election campaign.

“It was evening, around the time for the last prayer, when armed men came and took my son, Islamuddin, by force. I have eye-witness statements from nine people that he was there. From that night until now, my son has never been seen.”

Dilawar said his wife publicly harangued the commander twice about their missing son. After the second time, he said, they came for her. “The commander and three of his fighters came and took my wife out of our home and took her to their house about 200 metres away and, in front of these witnesses (there were again said said to be 9 witnesses) , raped her.”

Sara alleges the commander used connections to escape justice and he was released by a local court. Three other men were eventually put on trial, found guilty of rape and sentenced to 11 years in prison. One of the men died.

The other two were given a presidential pardon in May.

A copy of the pardon was numbered, dated in May and appeared to bear the personal signature of Hamid Karzai. It recommended the men's release because, it said, "they had been forced to confess to their crimes."

When shown copies of the presidential pardon and court papers, President Karzai's spokesman, Hamayun Hamidzada, was visibly shocked and said that if the documents proved genuine, Mr. Karzai would be "upset and appalled."

Humayun Hamidzada, the president's spokesman was also happy to explain that President Hamid Karzai was also busy after Afghani Olympic Tae Kwondo champion Rohullah Nikpai defeated world champion Juan Antonio Ramos of Spain in Peking to earn the bronze medal in the men's under 58-kilogram taekwondo competition . President Karzai spoke on the phone to Nikpai and awarded him a house at the government's expense.

Now the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, has announced a full investigation into the case of two rapists who have been freed on his presidential pardon.

This publicity has only arisen after the BBC have discovered that the victim, Sara, had been forced into hiding by the release of the men after they saw the released men walking around their village.

The president's office has refused to speculate on how the pardon could have been signed.

The suspicion must be that corruption - which is widespread across the Afghan justice system - has managed to penetrate the president's office.

A spokesman for Mr Karzai told the BBC that the acting attorney general would lead a commission of investigation.

"We are taking this with extreme seriousness," he said.

Another gang rape of a child rape that Karazai was called to decide on

This follows the story publicised on 28th July of Police Chief Abdul Khaliq Samimy and four other security officials dismissed for negligence . This was done by the personal order of Hamid Karazai over the handling of an alleged gang-rape of a 12-year-old girl in the village of Baghabi in the Northern province of Saripul .

The girl's parents travelled to Kabul and met President Karzai last week and told him the police had refused to investigate the case.

The girl told journalists that five gunmen had raped her in the village of Baghabi and her uncle Ali Khan claims the police refused to investigate the case and had told the family not to talk about the matter.

Another gang rape of a child involving the son of a powerful Member of Parliament

On February 18, 2008 a fourteen-year old girl named Bashira was gang- raped by three men in the same province. One of the rapists is Najibullah, the son of Haji Payinda, a member of parliament from Sar-e- Pul.

Sayed Noorullah, father of Bashira told Tolo TV on July 19, 2008 that the case against the rapist has not been followed property by the court, because the rapist is son of a member of parliament and they bribed the Forensic Medical Investigation department to show the 22-year-old rapist as being less than 18 to escape the charges based on law. See video of girl and parents and full story here.

MP, Mir Ahmad Joyenda, said cases similar to Sara's were actually becoming more common. The police and the courts, he said, were usually under the sway of local commanders. "The commanders, the war criminals, still have armed groups," he said. "They're in the government. Karzai, the Americans, the British sit down with them. They have impunity. They've become very courageous and can do whatever crimes they like."

Deputy Director for Program Support at Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, AREU, Mir Ahmed Joyenda is AREU’s link person to officialdom in Kabul. He is well adapted for this role as he formerly used to work for the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including serving as a diplomat at the Afghanistan Embassy in India for a few years after 1993. He joined AREU in 2001, as the first non-Western employee in the organisation

See Women under seige in Afghanistan also here

Kabul today