A notorious Afghan warlord accused of allowing the murder of hundreds, if not thousands, of prisoners and then destroying the evidence returned to Afghanistan Sunday night as part of what appears to be a political deal brokered with President Hamid Karzai .
Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum arrived from Turkey just four days before the Afghan presidential elections, in which his support could be key to Karzai”s chances of securing more than 50 percent of the vote – the threshold for avoiding a second round of elections.
Karzai has come under criticism for consolidating his position by striking deals with warlords like Dostum and those suspected of connections to the country”s opium trade.
Dostum comes with considerable baggage. There have been repeated allegations that his men were responsible for the deaths of up to 2,000 alleged Taliban and al Qaida prisoners in late-2001, a time when Dostum worked closely with U.S. special forces and intelligence teams in northern Afghanistan .
A McClatchy investigation last year uncovered information suggesting that Dostum later directed the removal of the remains of those slain prisoners, destroying the evidence of the original crime.
