Former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani, who fled Afghanistan on August 15 after the Taliban took over the capital city of Kabul, has been facing global criticism for abandoning the people of his country.
Former United States president Donald Trump, who has emerged as one of the strongest critics of the current US administration over the worsening situation in Afghanistan after the Taliban’s takeover, hit out at former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani.
Ghani, who fled Afghanistan on August 15 after the Taliban took over the capital city of Kabul, has been facing global criticism for abandoning the people of his country. A slew of allegations has surfaced against him, including fleeing Kabul with four cars and a helicopter full of cash and stealing $169 million from state coffers.
Donald Trump, who was giving an interview to Fox News on Tuesday night, said he “never had full confidence in Ashraf Ghani”. “I said that openly and plainly I thought he was a total crook. He spent all his time wining and dining our senators,” Trump said, adding the senators were always in Ghani’s pockets.
The Republican leader accused Ghani of getting away with murder in many, many different ways. However, he didn’t elaborate on what these ways were. Trump also echoed the above allegations against Ghani and said that he suspected that the former Afghan president did leave Kabul on Sunday with cash.
Meanwhile, Ashraf Ghani, who is currently in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with his family on ‘humanitarian grounds’, said that he is currently in talks to come back home. Releasing a video statement on Wednesday, Ghani said he was forced to leave Afghanistan “with one set of traditional clothes, a vest and the sandals”, adding he also left the country in an attempt to avoid bloodshed.
The former president also dismissed allegations of fleeing Kabul with suitcases full of cash by calling them baseless. “Do not believe whoever tells you that your president sold you out and fled for his own advantage and to save his own life,” he said in the video statement.