Attorney General Annual Brief to People of Afghanistan
Attorney General’s Office of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan presented its annual performance report of the solar year 1397 at GMIC on 4/22/2019.
Mohammad Farid Hamidi, the Attorney General of Afghanistan, said that during the last year we did investigate 41,658 cases. According to him, among those 21,266 were related to civil cases, 14139 military cases, 2855 crimes against local and foreign security, 3398 drugs cases and 238 were kidnapping cases.
Status of these Cases
In this conference, the Attorney General said that 26800 cases have completed their trials procedures and have been finalized. At the same time, 10971 cases took appellate court decisions and about 15162 other cases, the preliminary courts issued their decisions. According to him, 2021 cases are underwork and 9547 cases have been dismissed because of lack of reasons and evidence.
The Attorney General’s Office has investigated a total of 574 kidnapping cases since 1395 and has detained 1033 culprits and as a result of investigating these crimes, a huge amount of money have deposited to government account that includes 80,550,352 AFN, 420,950 Pakistani Rupees, 214,200 Indian Kaldar, and 105007 US$, Hamidi said.
The Attorney General pointed out to a number of other issues as their performance during the last year, such as fight against corruption, fight against narcotics, internal oversight and reforms, training and capacity building, access to justice, rule of law, observing the rights of prisoners and investigating the cases of violence against journalists.
Fight against Corruption
Fight against corruption is a top priority for The Attorney General. According to him, the Anti-Corruption Criminal Justice Center (ACJC) with the collaboration of other offices is only established for this reason, which received 850 cases on the solar year 1397, and among those cases, 110 were fully investigated and referred back to the court. 193 cases are still underworking, 76 cases are under the process of detection, 454 cases were referred to their related offices because of lack of investigating authority and 17 cases were disbanded because of lack of proves and reasons.
He added, “in relation to these cases, 212 people have been punished by this office, 67 were put on the list of no exit and jobs of 28 others were suspended.”
In regards to the investigation of these cases, amount of 320,189,947 AFN, 153,140,820 US$, 299,500 Pakistani Rupees, 309 million Irani Tooman, 6 million 701 thousand Saudi Riyals, 100,000 UAE Dirham, and 15000 Euro were deposited to the government account.
During his speech at this conference, the Attorney General said that the Attorney General’s Office of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, in addition, to combat against criminals and investigating of criminal crimes, have achieved a series of activities to fight against corruption.
He pointed out for the establishment of Deputy of Attorney General in Anti-Corruption Affairs, codification of illegal assets reclaiming draft, organizing of three national conferences named “Voice of Minbar against Corruption, Joint Conference of Anti-Corruption at Defense and Security Organs and Anti-Corruption Conference.”
He also added that “the AGO has signed five Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Defense, NDS, NPA, and IECC.”
Counter Narcotic
According to Hamidi, during the last year, the AGO has investigated 3398 cases of narcotic. In regards to this cases, we have seized 2765.235 Kg of Heroine, 6778 Kg of Morphine, 16388.348 Kg opium, 281822.191 Kg hashish, 85928.804 Kg chemistry materials, 8941.104 liter of alcoholic beverage, 1287.5 liters of acid and one million 24000 of Tablet K.
“For investigating this cases, six million and 256 thousand and 662 AFN and 231 thousand and 750 US$ have also seized and deposited into the government account.” He said.
Internal Oversight
Based on the opinion of the Attorney General of Afghanistan, anti-corruption and supply of justice services need internal reforms and actions, for this reason, we in addition to the aforementioned activities, have severely monitored the internal affairs of AGO. He said, “General Directorate of Attorney for Control and Surveillance, has been specifically designed within the AGO for this reason. During the solar year 1397, this directorate has completed 1330 mobile curfew and closed to 20 employees of the AGO who were being busy in corruption, were identified and detained.”
In another part of this conference, the Attorney General said that in addition to the mentioned cases, we have printed and distributed 3000 brochure for anti-corruption and attracting the cooperation of people and also we have installed 3000 posters in all provinces to give awareness and attract the cooperation of people against corruption.
According to Hamidi, registering the assets of the prosecutors, providing and singing the form of conflict of interest for prosecutors, activating the electronic attendance, all are those steps that we have taken for monitoring of the internal oversight of the AGO.
Internal Reforms
During the conference, the Attorney General talked about their achievement for internal reforms during the last year. He pointed out to the creating of Deputy Attorney General in Anti-Corruption Affairs, Monitoring Attorney on Women Prisons, creating of Attorney Office for Prohibiting Violence against Women at 34 provinces of the country, Creating of Directorships for Decreasing the Violence against Women, Creating of Attorney Office for Combatting with International Crimes, Creating the Attorney Office for Reclaiming of Public Assets, Eliminating the inflation of organizational chart and parallel sections, fitting the organizational chart, merging of sex directorates for their work similarities, creating Cases Management Systems (CMS) at 34 provinces and 119 at capital, recruiting of 1925 employees at civil and military sections, of them 377 are female employees, increasing the female staff from 3% to 20%, facilitating the existence of female prosecutors at 32 provinces and enforcing the profitable retirement program for 126 prosecutors and recruiting of new employees and organizing of 231 computational programs for recruiting through reforms programs.
Training and Capacity Building
Hamidi says that providing effective services for the public is related to the capacity building of staffs and added that we have provided a good opportunity during the solar year 1397 in term of training and educating of our staffs. According to him, during the last year, we have introduced 88 prosecutors for Master in Art program, 83 employees to Bachelor of Art program, 73 employees for stage program, 32 employees to abroad scholarships and also introduced 2713 of the employees for various training programs.
Access to Justice
Based on the opinion of the Attorney General, providing the opportunity of access to justice for Afghan people is a top priority of the AGO. He added, “In order that people have access to justice, we did activate the attorney offices on 57 districts of the country, also we did activate the attorney offices for eliminating violence against women at 34 provinces and right now we have women prosecutors at 32 provinces.
Hamidi said that we have specified every Monday for meeting face to face with public people and are receiving their opinions and solving their problems. He also pointed to the creating of a specific call center of 180, installing complaint boxes, creating and activating of receptions and creating a center for access to information.
Rule of Law
According to the Attorney General, for ensuring rule of law and ensuring justice, the AGO is trying its best to prepare and consolidate ASAP the dictum captivity and submit it to security organs. At the same time, the AGO is a member of the Rule of Law Supreme Council and besides active participating at that, is holding uninterruptedly the anti-corruption meetings.
In another part of this conference, the Attorney General said that the AGO is reviewing and investigating every case impartially, fairly and legally. According to him, during the last year, the AGO has completed the related cases of five current and previous ministers and submit it to the special court. From the other hand, based on the AGO endeavors during last year, 16 General and seven Deputy Minister were convicted of punishment on various cases.
Observance of Human Rights of the Prisoners
The Attorney General spoke about the creating Surveillance Attorney Office on prisons and detention centers, in order to ensure the rights of the prisoners, particularly the female prisoners. According to him, this office will continuously monitor the prisons and detention centers at Kabul and provinces. Hamidi added, “in order to observe and ensure the rights of the prisoners, we are concurrently implementing the remission decrees of the presidential palace, in order that no prisoner is kept in prison for more than a period of imprisonment.”
He also pointed out to the transfer of Afghan prisoners from other countries to Afghanistan, as another achievement of this office. In this regard, he said, “since the solar year 1393 till now, the AGO has transferred around 1273 Afghan prisoners from Iran to Afghanistan, which only 650 of them were transferred last year.”
As the Attorney General stated, in order to improve the situation of the prisoners and detention centers, the AGO has created a Committee for the Prevention of Torture and organized a conference last year named “Strengthening Legislation and Ensuring Justice in Detention Centers’.
Settlement Violence Case against Journalists
The Attorney General of the country also recalled the handling of more than 50 cases of violence against journalists in last year and said that the two were sentenced to death following the assassination of Abdul Manan Arghand, a Kabul News correspondent in Kandahar. Meanwhile, we have convicted three people in connection with the killing of Ahmad Shah, the BBC's reporter, among one of them was sentenced to death, the other to thirty years imprisonment and another one to a six years in imprisonment.