Afghan Biographies
Yar, Dawood Dr.
Name | Yar, Dawood Dr. |
Ethnic backgr. | Tajik |
Date of birth | |
Function/Grade | Ex Ambassador |
History and Biodata |
2. Previous Functions of Dr. Dawood Yar:
3. Biodata: Following the communist coup in April 1978, Yaar escaped persecution on political grounds and migrated to the Federal Republic of Germany, where he was admitted at a Ph.D. program at Cologne University (1979). He received his doctorate degree in economics from that university in 1985. While working on his Ph.D., Yaar served as the CEO of the Verein fuer Afghanische Fluechtlings Hilfe, e.v in Bonn. In this capacity, Yaar raised and managed humanitarian aid to assist Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran. As part of this job, Yaar traveled to Afghanistan and established humanitarian aid centers in areas that were free of the Soviet occupation.
In 1987, Yaar and his family migrated to the United States, where he took a teaching job at California State University-East Bay. Yaar taught as a lecturer at that institution from September 1988 until August 2008. In September 2008, Yaar returned to Afghanistan to serve his country. In January 2009, Yaar was appointed as economic adviser to the Office of the Chief of Staff of the President. In February 2010, Yaar took up the position of the Director of Policy and Oversight at the National Security Council Office. In February 2011, Yaar was appointed as Director General of Economic Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In June 2012, he was designated as ambassador to the UK by His Excellency the President of Afghanistan. Yaar presented his credentials as ambassador to Her Majesty the Queen on October 24, 2012.
Mr. Yaar is married since 1973 and has three children.
More Background: The group's members agreed to write letters to foreign newspapers under fake names exposing the atrocities of the Afghan communist regime and its Soviet backers in Moscow. Surviving members of the group said Yaar was the only one to escape. They suspect they might have been betrayed by a mysterious relative whom Yaar brought to a meeting the day before the arrests began. Yaar spent 10 years in Germany from 1987 to 1987 where studies at the Cologne University to perhaps be awarded PhD, before moving in 1987 to the US, where he shared a house with the Karzai's. Some sources said he worked before 9/11 as an informal PR adviser to the Taliban's New York representative, Hakim Mujahid. In California he worked as a part-time economics professor while amassing a property empire that included at least six houses. Back in Kabul his connections got him a post on the Afghan National Security Council, chaired by Hamid Karzai. He was a key liaison between the council and a UK-funded agency, Adam Smith International. In 2010 Yaar became the director of economic affairs at the Kabul foreign ministry, a plum job. He now liaises between the Afghan government and western donors on financial issues. British diplomats in Kabul appear unaware of the fraud allegations and have declined to comment. At one point Yaar was in the frame to become ambassador in Washington. The job eventually went to the deputy foreign minister Eklil Hakimi. Yaar then got London as a consolation prize, one source suggested. Yaar spent about 20 years in the US. He lived with Ahmed Wali Karzai (a brother who was killed) in the late 1980s and 90s, when the family ran a restaurant in Chicago. Ahmed Wali shared the business with Mahmoud and another Karzai brother, Qayum. Yaar's appointment to the high-profile London post is likely to raise questions about alleged rampant corruption and nepotism at the heart of the Karzai administration. Afghan sources said Yaar secured the UK job following intense behind-the-scenes lobbying by Mahmoud Karzai, the president's influential brother, whose business activities in Afghanistan are also being investigated in the US. Ahead of the Afghan president's departure from office in 2014, Karzai family members have been fighting among themselves for control of the fortune they have amassed over the past decade, the New York Times reported in June 2012. Yaar returned to Afghanistan in 2009. He left the US following the settlement of a civil action against him. The plaintiffs, two Afghan-born brothers, Jamal and Ajmal Staneckzai, claim he "tricked, defrauded and deceived" them over the 2001 purchase of a house in Fresno, California. In 2010 a family of Afghan immigrants accused Yaar, in a civil court in California, of defrauding them. He admits to owing them $100,000.Yaar denies fraud and says he intends to repay the money. Yaar said he was planning to pay off the remainder of the money he owed as soon as he could afford it, but his home in California was in negative equity and his small government salary in Kabul did not leave room for savings. But one of his alleged victims said that Yaar was not a fit person to become ambassador to the UK, let alone hold responsibility in Kabul for big financial issues. Yaar bought a property in 2001 for the Staneckzai family in Fresno, California, but registered it in his own name. The Staneckzais made regular mortgage payments, with several family friends providing the initial deposit as a loan, he said. In 2005 the Staneckzais were finally able to get a mortgage. When they asked Yaar to transfer the property to them he refused and sold it to them for $358,900, promising to refund the net proceeds. Instead, Yaar pocketed the cash. In January 2009 the family's lawyer, Bashir Ghazialam, filed court papers alleging "breach of trust, breach of fiduciary duty and fraud". In August 2010 he obtained a judgment against Yaar and his wife, Sadia, for $120,000, after the Year's paid only $10,000 of agreed damages. Mohammad Daud Yaar is married to Mrs. Sadia. Yaar speaks Pashtu, Dari, German and English
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Last Modified | 2018-09-23 |
Established | 2011-05-15 |