Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Last updated: Wednesday December 23, 2009, 12:54 PM
BY BEN NUCKOLS AND RAHIM FAIEZ
The Record
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BALTIMORE — American and Afghan relatives of Afghan President Hamid Karzai cast doubt Tuesday on Afghanistan's move to investigate the slaying of a young Karzai family member, saying the Afghan government does not want to bring the suspected killer to justice in part because of his U.S. military connections.
Karzai said Tuesday in Kabul that he has asked Afghanistan's Interior Ministry to investigate the slaying of a young relative in a possible revenge killing connected to a family feud.
Relatives of the president, including the slain teenager's father, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that they believed Karzai's government has little interest in bringing the suspect to justice. One American relative said he had turned to the FBI for help.
Mohammad Suliman Karzai, a cousin who lives in Brookeville, Md., said Tuesday that he had contacted the FBI and had been interviewed by a federal agent. FBI officials would not discuss whether the agency was involved in the case.
The October killing of 18-year-old Waheed Karzai in southern Afghanistan attracted little attention before it was reported this week by The New York Times.
Karzai was asked about it Tuesday during a news conference with the visiting NATO chief, and said that he had turned the matter over to the Interior Ministry.
The Times report raised questions about whether Karzai's administration was trying to downplay the killing and whether powerful families could escape investigation, a sensitive issue amid rising concerns about corruption and impunity in Karzai's government.
Waheed Karzai was shot to death Oct. 16 in Karz, the president's hometown in Kandahar province. He was the son of one of the president's cousins, Yar Mohammad Karzai.
Relatives believe one of the president's first cousins, Hashmat Karzai, shot the teenager as revenge for a so-called honor killing — a murder spurred by a marriage-related insult — that Yar Mohammad Karzai, 62, allegedly committed three decades ago.
"Hashmat and his crew came into my house and killed my son. He killed my son to put deep pain on me," Yar Mohammad Karzai told The Associated Press by telephone Tuesday from his home in Karz.
Hashmat Karzai, 40, told the Times he did not kill Waheed and that the slaying was carried out by drug dealers who mistakenly went to the wrong house.
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