Former Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, whose children both live in million dollar homes in the United States, has denied that he skipped town with four cars and a chopper full of $169 million – but his former head bodyguards says the cowardly politician is a liar.
Brigadier General Piraz Ata Sharifi, was in charge of the day-to-day security of President Ashraf Ghani, claims he not only saw huge bags of cash from the central bank of Afghanistan being transferred to Ghani’s control, he has video proof.
Shariff, who was left behind in Afghanistan and is now being hunted by the Taliban, recalled the final day of Ghani’s presidency to the Daily Mail from his hideout:
“One of my jobs was to disarm the soldiers on guard at the ministry before the president arrived, for his security,” Shariff told the paper. “We were waiting for the president there. But then I got a call to say that instead of coming to the defense ministry, the president had gone to the airport. The defense minister had also fled. So had my boss. So had all of Ghani’s close family and entourage.”
Sharif then revealed potentially devastating information regarding Ghani and his alleged theft of millions.
“I have a [CCTV] recording [from the palace] which shows that an individual at the Afghan Bank brought a lot of money to Ghani before he left,” Sharioff recounted. “Hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of dollars. There were many big bags and they were heavy. It was not rice… This money was supposed to be for the currency exchange market. Each Thursday, the dollars were brought for that purpose. Instead, it was taken by the president. Ghani knew in the end what would happen. So he took all the money and escaped.”
A despondent Shariff added: “I never thought (Ghani) would do that. But I have the evidence which I will share when I am in a safe place.”
“The president never told us he was going,” he said. “They just escaped and left me behind.”
The former president, now living in safety and luxury in the United Arab Emirates, has claimed he left Kabul at the urging of palace security officials who feared his presence could spark “horrific street-to-street fighting’” like Kabul saw during the civil war in the 1990s.
But Shariff and others were abandoned in the process.
“I don’t have 300 weapons as the Taliban claim, but I do have one gun and one bullet,” Shariff told the paper.
“If the Taliban come here, I will kill myself. If they capture me, they will kill me anyway.”