Afghan Biographies

Hamidi, Mohammad Farid


Name Hamidi, Mohammad Farid
Ethnic backgr. Hazara
Date of birth 1968
Function/Grade Attorney General AGO
History and Biodata

1. Former Attorney Generals:
Mahmud Daqic Abdul Jabbar Sabit (Sabet, fired 20080715)
Bashir Ahmad Fazli (acting 20080716)
Mohamed Ishaq Aloko (since 20080824-20141018) he was Deputy before)
acting Qaramuddin Shinwari (20141019)
acting attorney general Noor Habib Jalal (20150530)
Mohammad Farid Mohammad Farid Hamidi (20160409)

 

Six Deputies:
Deputy Attorney General's Office for Crimes Investigation
Deputy Attorney General's Office for Prosecution Cases
Deputy Attorney General’s Office for Anti-Violence against Women and Juvenile Delinquency
Deputy Attorney General’s Office for Financial and Administrative Affairs
Deputy Attorney General’s Office for Military Affairs
Deputy Attorney General’s Office for Anti-Corruption Affairs

 

Deputy Attorney General:
Rahmatullah Nazari (20101023) Noor Habib Jalal (20111209)
Abdul Fatah Azizi (20160500)
Enayatullah Kamaal (20160500)

Speaker Spokesperson Spokesman for the Attorney General's Office:
Imanullah Imam (20110318)
Basir Azizi Baseer Azizi (20141002, 20150208)

Chief Prosecutor:
Rahmatullah Nazari Nazary has been appointed to head the Prosecutions department of the dedicated Counter Narcotics Tribunal in Kabul (20080814)
Deputy Attorney General Fazl Ahmad Faqiryar, (20090422, fired 20100826 because he repeatedly refused to block corruption investigations at the highest levels of the government), replaced by Ahmad Beg Qadiry (20100831),
Deputy of Attorney General’s Office Mohammed Younes Roman,  (2008)
Deputy Attorney-General (DAG) Inayatullah Kamal (20091212),
Deputy Attorney General Amrodin Wafa, 65, fired (20100826)
Deputy Attorney General
in commercial, administrative and trade affairs: Abdul Wakil Amini (20100812, 20111220),
Head of the Special Prosecution Office for Cases of Violence against Women:
Mrs. Qudsiya Niazi Qudsia Niazi (20140108)

The prosecutors of the National Security Attorney General Department (NSAGD), a special branch within the Attorney General’s Office, and the judges of the Public Security Courts have been neglected by the international community during the past years. However, their service is of great importance because they investigate and decide cases brought to them by the Afghan security service (NDS).

Head of the complaints department at the Attorney General's office (Investigative Head at the AG's Office):
Hafizullah Hafiz (20110221)

Head of the justice department at the Attorney General’s Office:

Abdul Qadoos Rashidi (20130307)

Other members of the Office of the Attorney General:
Brigadier General Sharafuddin (20140907)
Deputy military chief of the Afghanistan Attorney General Office: Abdul Fatah Azizi (20151126)

Assistant Attorney General of Afghanistan:
Wahiduddin Arghon  (20170731)
Head of Attorney Control Office:
Mohammad Nawab Ahmadzai (20200624)

 

ago_chart

Officials of the Attorney-General’s Office said that they have no offices in 65 districts in Kandahar, Uruzgan, Zabul, Farah, Helmand, Nimroz, Ghazni, Nuristan, Paktya, Paktika, Logar, Khost, Dai Kundi and Wardak provinces.(20130213)

2. Former Functions:

Member of the Loya Jirga Election Commission and responsible for four provinces (Kandahar, Zabul, Helmand, Uruzgan) (2002).
Interim Secretary of the Emergency Loya Jirga. (2002)
Head of the interim administration as a member of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.

Elected as a member of the Electoral Complaints Commission (2005)
Member of the State Accountability Committee for International Covenants and the Universal Periodic Review Reporting Committee

Adviser of the Ministry of Youth Affairs.
President of the Presidential Advisory Board for the appointment of senior government officials for six years.
AIHRC commissioner Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission
Attorney General (20160409)

3. Biodata:
Mohammad Farid Hamidi was born 1968 in Nangahar Province, Afghanistan. He completed the elementary education at the local school. Then entered the National Police Academy of Afghanistan and graduated from the Criminal Justice Faculty as an undergraduate student. Hamidi then went to Kabul University and obtained a Bachelor of Art (BA) in Law and Political Sciences. Later, he graduated from the Islamic Azad University (Iran controlled) with a Master of Art (MA) degree in criminology.

Farid Hamidi is a well-known lawyer with extensive experience on criminology and investigation. He had attended various national and international conferences and events relevant to human rights promotion and protection. Before joining the Commission, Hamidi was member of the Emergency Loya Jirga and responsible for developing rules and regulation for election. He has worked closely with the Judicial Reform Commission in the training of lawyers and judges on international human rights law and standards. Besides Dr Samar herself, Farid Hamidi, Sayed Ahmad Langari and Soraya Sobhrang saw their commissioner posts renewed.(20130619)

Hamidi is a police-academy graduate whose work as a human rights commissioner won him a strong recommendation from President Ashraf Ghani, who, in one of his first official acts, nominated him to lead the attorney general’s office. The parliament confirmed him, by a vote of 200-19. From the beginning, he was feted as a star of Ghani’s reform agenda.

Hamidi said that his investigations into the attorney general’s office resulted in the firings of 30 of the old guard. Many had allegedly been permitted to carry on corrupt practices under Hamidi’s predecessor, Mohammad Ishaq Aloko, who is closely aligned with the former President Hamid Karzai; his name is still linked to the Kabul Bank scandal of 2010 and 2011, which saw nearly $1 billion dollars disappear in faulty loans. (Karzai never allowed auditors to investigate his own foreign holdings.) Hamidi also said that he has banned some 3,000 people with pending corruption cases against them from traveling abroad. This is in addition to the 125 he has coaxed into early retirement and the 250 he has newly hired. He has also pushed for higher educational standards and salary increases for recruits, as a deterrent against bribes.

Hamidi said he was persuaded to take the attorney general  job by President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, who called him at 6 a.m. last spring 2016 in Boston, where he was finishing a master’s degree at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is a well-known lawyer with extensive experience on criminology and investigation. He had attended various national and international conferences and events relevant to human rights promotion and protection. Before joining the Commission, Hamidi was member of the Emergency Loya Jirga and responsible for developing rules and regulation for election. He has worked closely with the Judicial Reform Commission in the training of lawyers and judges on international human rights law and standards. Besides Dr Samar herself, Farid Hamidi, Sayed Ahmad Langari and Soraya Sobhrang saw their commissioner posts renewed.(20130619) Farid Hamidiis the lead prosecutor in the AG's Office. (20160604)

In January 2017, Hamidi went after Afghanistan’s vice president, whose bodyguards allegedly raped and tortured a political rival. Ahmad Ishchi, the victim, has accused Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum of kidnapping, beating, and deputizing his bodyguards to sexually assault him. While Hamidi has ordered the arrest of nine of the bodyguards and Dostum remains under investigation, it is unclear whether anyone will be prosecuted in the case.Targeting Dostum represented an escalation for Hamidi, from cleaning house and dealing with financial impropriety to taking on some of the most powerful political figures in Afghanistan.

 

U.S. officials told SIGAR that Afghan attorney general Mohammad Farid Hamidi lied to them. After Hamidi announced he had arrested some lawyers for corruption, the U.S. asked for proof and Hamidi was unable to provide any. Hamidi also said he would introduce modern case-tracking systems by mid-2018, as demanded by U.S. officials. But the attorney general bashed these systems as being imposed by foreigners while talking to Afghan officials, according to SIGAR. Resistance to using these case-tracking systems has led to delays and cases being dropped, according to another report by the Pentagon released in July. 2018 U.S. officials in the report said Hamidi wouldn’t update his methods because of “a concern that more transparency will shine a light on his unproductive, corrupt, and patronage-laden office.”

Other organizations such as the United Nations and NATO’s Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan expressed similar concerns about the Justice Center’s declining performance, the report said. NATO military advisers noted the Justice Center has tried only four general officers in 2018. NATO’s Resolute Support mission has advisers in the Justice Center and has increased efforts to “re-energize it,” according to the July Pentagon report. Resolute Support does not have advisers in the Afghan attorney general’s office, although they have attempted to gain access to more cases.(20181109)

 

Last Modified 2020-11-02
Established 2009-12-07