KABUL, Afghanistan -- A top Afghan prosecutor who has complained that the attorney general and others are blocking corruption cases against high-ranking government officials said Saturday that he was fired by Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
Deputy Attorney General Fazel Ahmed Faqiryar told the New York Times Saturday that he was fired for refusing to block corruption investigations in "the highest levels" of Karzai's government. Faqiryar told the Associated Press that he was forced to retire.
Faqiryar, 72, said he wanted to continue doing his work, which has involved pursuing corruption allegations against top officials in the Karzai administration -- a task which had put him in the middle of a political fire storm.
U.S. officials have been pressing Karzai to do more to root out corruption. Karzai has pushed back, saying that the international community needs to do more to eliminate corruption in its own contracting procedures and eliminate terrorist havens outside the borders of Afghanistan.
"Everybody knows how hard I was working as a deputy attorney general," Faqiryar said in a telephone interview. "It was my responsibility as a top government official to complete and investigate those cases, especially those where high-ranking officials were involved in corruption, and this is what I did."
He said that cases against three or four former Afghan Cabinet ministers had been completed, but had been put on hold and had not been sent to the courts. Five provincial governors have been accused of corruption, he said. Two of the cases involving governors have been sent to court and three remain under investigation, he said.
In addition, Faqiryar said that several Afghan ambassadors to other nations have been accused of corruption.
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