Afghan Vice-President Dostum accused of sex assault

 

A senior official in Afghanistan says he was violently kidnapped and sexually molested by Vice-President Abdul Rashid Dostum late last month.

The accusation came from Ahmad Eshchi, the former governor of General Dostum's home province of Jowzjan in the north.
He said the vice-president and 10 other men assaulted him while he was forcibly kept at the former warlord's residence for five days.
Gen Dostum described the accusation as a "provocation".

He said Mr Eshchi was detained not by him, but by the country's intelligence service - on charges of involvement in insecurity in Jowzjan.
The office of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani promised a thorough investigation into the accusations.
Both the European Union and the United States called for an investigation into the reported mistreatment of the former governor, who re-emerged on Saturday after disappearing for two weeks.
Gen Dostum is an ethnic Uzbek and a former warlord blamed for some of the worst atrocities in Afghanistan's long-running civil war. He joined the country's national unity government in 2014.