KABUL: An Afghan interpreter for US special forces arrested on accusations of torturing and killing civilians has denied involvement in the murders to Afghan investigators, and said he was always acting on orders from his US military handlers.
Afghan authorities detained Zakeria Kandahari six weeks ago following allegations he was involved in atrocities against civilians in Wardak, a strategically important province close to Kabul. In a record of the interview being prepared by military investigators and obtained by Reuters, Kandahari said he had worked for US special forces across Afghanistan for nine years, most recently in Wardak’s Nerkh district, where the allegations surfaced in February.
“I was a low-rank translator and had no access to roam around inside the base, or in interrogation rooms,” Kandahari told the investigators, according to the three-page document which carried his photograph on the front page, dressed in camouflage fatigues and a hat.
In the document, Kandahari identified three US special forces soldiers as “Dave, chief of the operations, Hagen and Chris” and told Afghan military interrogators that the trio had been fluent in both of Afghanistan’s major languages, Dari and Pashto.
Reuters
