Comedy of Errors in Kabul as Karzai Aide Is Arrested Then Released

President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday ordered the release of a prominent presidential aide two hours after his arrest on corruption charges, according to two officials in the office of Afghanistan’s Attorney General.The move resulted in a comedy of errors in which the Attorney General’s office first announced the arrest of the official, Noorullah Delawari, on corruption charges, then convened a press conference to detail the charges against him. By the time the press conference took place, however, the office’s spokesman, Amanullah Eman, said the announcement had been a "misunderstanding" and Mr. Delawari had been questioned rather than charged.

Between the announcement and the retraction, the two high-ranking officials in the Attorney General’s office said, President Karzai had called Attorney General Mohammed Ishaq Aloko and ordered Mr. Delawari released.

"Mr. Aloko came under extreme pressure from the president," one of the officials said.

A ministerial level presidential adviser on the banking and private sector, Mr. Delawari, 64, heads the Afghanistan Investment Support Agency and is a former governor of the Central Bank, as well as a current member of the bank’s board. He is the most prominent official currently serving in Mr. Karzai’s government to be arrested on corruption charges, albeit briefly.

Last year, Mr. Karzai intervened to win the release from custody on charges of soliciting a bribe by Mohammad Zia Salehi, head of administration for the president’s National Security Council. Mr. Salehi had been arrested after an investigation by American-supported corruption agencies, and was also released after Mr. Karzai telephoned Attorney General Aloko. All charges were eventually dropped against Mr. Salehi.

A spokesman for President Karzai did not respond to requests for comment on Mr. Delawari’s release.

"I heard the president was extremely displeased and felt they should never have announced this and ruined someone’s reputation," Mr. Delawari said in a telephone interview after his release.

He added however that it did not appear to him that President Karzai had ordered his release because in his view he was simply held for four hours for questioning.

"I was being kept in an office under investigation," he said. "I don’t think it required the President’s action to release me. Although as a minister-adviser to the President, they should have gone through the President’s office in the first place."

Some officials in the attorney general’s office saw the matter differently, however. "Mr. Delawari was brought to the Attorney General’s office and after two hours Mr. Aloko got a call from President Karzai to release him as soon as possible," said an official who was present when the call came in, but spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

"Unfortunately when it comes to high-ranking government officials we can’t do anything," said another official, requesting anonymity for the same reason. "Unfortunately, we have opened corruption cases against almost all of the members of the President’s cabinet. Maybe we won’t be able to do anything about Mr. Delawari, but his file will be in the attorney general’s office for the next ten years, and someday someone will."

Mr. Delawari’s brief arrest came a day after the arrest of a former member of Mr. Karzai’s cabinet, the ex-minister of transport and aviation, Anayatullah Qasimi, also on corruption charges. The two arrests were both related to an investigation into corruption in contracting for Ariana Afghan Airlines, the state-owned carrier.

In Mr. Qasimi’s case, he is charged with embezzlement for the government’s loss of $9 million in bad deals related to the purchase of new aircraft for the airline. Under Afghan law, embezzlement includes mismanagement of government funds as well misappropriation of them.

The charges against Mr. Delawari were also for embezzlement, in his case for allegedly approving, through the investment commission he heads, the hiring of six Lufthansa aviation consultants by Ariana, at a cost of $3 million for one year, Mr. Delawari said. Investigators wanted to know why less expensive consultants could not have been hired, he added.

"It’s sad because you can’t do anything in Afghanistan, if you make a mistake, it’s considered a crime," Mr. Delawari said. Although he said he was never actually charged --despite the claims by authorities earlier in the day -- he said officials told him that "the case is continuing."

Mr. Delawari, a dual Afghan and American citizen, is highly regarded in the business community and has a reputation as an opponent of corruption. He returned to Afghanistan in 2002 after having spent most of his life in the United States, where he had a career as a banking executive.