Dostum Blocks Police from Arresting His Guards

Afghanistan’s Vice President General Abdul Rashid Dostum is creating new problems as the government tries to investigate his role in the alleged abduction and sexual assault on Ahmad Ishchi, a political rival of him, it was reported on Saturday.

Afghanistan’s attorney general ordered the arrest of nine of the Vice-President’s bodyguards after Dostum and his guards ignored three summons for questioning over the accusations.

The Wall Street Journal quoting Afghan officials reported that now Dostum is blocking police from arresting his bodyguards and has seized two checkpoints in the Capital, Kabul.

Reportedly, the checkpoints had been guarded by police, but then Dostum’s militias took over the area after he arrived to Kabul with hundreds of guards.

Police have for weeks been unable to question Dostum’s men over the allegations while his office said it would cooperate with the investigations.

Under Afghan law, he could be suspended from his position and put under house arrest for his refusal to cooperate with the investigation.

The refusal comes as earlier, a spokesman for the President, assured that “for Afghan government, nobody is above the law”.