A top Afghan intelligence official on Tuesday accused the Pakistani embassy of refusing to cooperate with a probe into the assassination of Afghan peace envoy and former president Burhanuddin Rabbani.
But Pakistan’s ambassador to Kabul said a letter he wrote to investigators promised to help. Zia, deputy head of the National Directorate of Security (NDS) who goes by one name only, told a news conference in Kabul that the Pakistani embassy had contacted the intelligence agency to complain after details of the investigation appeared in the media.
“We are not able to cooperate because Professor Rabbani’s assassination case has been leaked to the media,” Zia quoted the letter from the Pakistani embassy as saying. Despite having been given evidence, including pictures of the perpetrators, the Pakistan embassy made excuses and refused to help, Zia added. Mohammad Sadiq, Pakistan’s Ambassador in Kabul, told Reuters he had neither refused to help nor complained about media leaks.
“There is a clear misunderstanding, we sent a letter to the commission set up to investigate Professor Rabbani’s killing and reaffirmed our cooperation. We never said that we are not cooperating,” he said in a telephone interview. Zia added that Afghan President Hamid Karzai had agreed to submit evidence to the United Nations, and push for an international investigation, on the grounds that it was “not worth asking for Pakistan’s cooperation”.
The intelligence agency also released what it said was a video confession from one of the key players in the plot to kill Rabbani, Hameedullah Akhondzada. But Akhondzada did not claim to have planned the killing, saying instead that he was ordered to bring the bomber to Rabbani, after making initial contact with the former president. “Mullah Mohebullah who is a member of (the) Taliban movement and (shadow) governor for Kabul wanted me to introduce my peace council contacts to him and I did so,” said Akhondzada said.
