Afghan Biographies

Karzai, Hashmat Khalil


Name Karzai, Hashmat Khalil
Ethnic backgr. Pashtun
Date of birth 1969
Function/Grade Wolesi Jirga Candidate 2010 Kandahar
History and Biodata

Hashmat Khalil Karzai was delisted from the Wolesi Jirga Election 2010 results due to fraud (20101121).

2. Previous Functions:
worked at a Toyota dealership in Virginia before 2007,
Head Asia Security Group (ASG),

3. Biodata
Karzai_Hashmat_KhalilHashmat Karzai: Hashmat was born 1969 in Kandahar, Afghanistan, moved to the United States in the 80th and settled in Maryland. He became an American citizen, and until 2007 worked at a Toyota dealership in Virginia. He returned to Afghanistan, where his younger brother, Hekmat, 36, runs the Center for Conflict and Peace Studies, a Kabul-based research organization that supports the Karzai government. Hashmat is based in a forbidding fort in the village of Karz. Soon after arriving in Kabul, Hashmat Karzai took over the Asia Security Group, a company that now employs 500 to 600 guards, he said. In recent months, Asia Security has been awarded $16.2 million in five contracts with the United States military to provide security for five American bases in Afghanistan, according to Col. Wayne M. Shanks, an American military spokesman. According to its Web site, Asia Security also has other major American customers in Afghanistan, including DynCorp International, a Virginia-based firm with large contracts with the American government in Afghanistan. Hekmat’s Karzai’s research center is also an Asia Security client, the Web site said. Hashmat Karzai, 40, is a first cousin of the president and the owner of a private security company Asia Security Group (ASG), based in Sherpur, Kabul. ASG has close ties to the Afghan government and millions of dollars in contracts with the United States military. Now President Karzai has demanded that the security firms be shut down. Ashmat Karzai says that he is no longer the owner of ASG. He said it has been a while since he sold the company, when we asked why he sold ASG, he said he didnt like it, so he sold it. However, the company's permit in the records of AISA (the Afghanistan Investment Support Agency) is in the name of Ashmat Karzai, and security guards with ASG cap badges can be observed around a guesthouse he owns in Kabul.

Hashmat is accused to have have killed Waheed Karzai in Karz Village (Dand District, Kandahar Province) in autumn 2009 reports New York Times 20091220. The killing has set off a bitter split within the family in Afghanistan and the United States, with charges, countercharges and claims of a cover-up by Afghan officials. Some relatives said they believed that the death was vengeance for an “honor killing” of Hashmat Karzai’s father nearly 30 years ago by Yar Mohammad Karzai. For his part, Hashmat Karzai denies any role in Waheed’s death, instead saying that the boy was shot by drug dealers intending to harm someone else. “They mixed up the houses and killed the boy by mistake,” Hashmat Karzai said in a telephone interview from Dubai, where he is staying with his family. “I had nothing to do with it.” While some family members accuse the Karzai government of stonewalling, they do not claim that the president played an active role in blocking an investigation. Instead, they blame several of his brothers, including Ahmed Wali Karzai, the political boss of Kandahar and southern Afghanistan, for trying to hush up relatives and forestall an official inquiry, perhaps with the president’s knowledge. Frustrated by the seeming inaction on the killing, nearly a dozen family members agreed to be interviewed for this article. Some, including Yar Mohammad Karzai, Sona Karzai and Zalal Karzai, who witnessed aspects of the shooting or its immediate aftermath, also provided documents about the killing. They include a complaint that Yar Mohammad Karzai filed with the Dand district police in Kandahar Province naming Hashmat Karzai as Waheed’s assailant, the boy’s hospital records and a death certificate stating that he died of gunshot wounds.

President Hamid Karzai’s powerful cousin Hashmat Karzai, a close ally of presidential candidate Ashraf Ghani, was killed on Tuesday 29 July 2014 in a suicide bomb attack at his home. Hashmat Karzai was campaign manager for former Finance Minister and World Bank official Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, who is competing against Abdullah Abdullah.

Hashmat Karzai was hosting an event for the Eid al-Fitr holiday at his home in the province when the bomber, a 16-year-old boy, detonated explosives hidden in his turban while embracing Hashmat Karzai as part of special greetings for the Eid al-Fitr Muslim holiday at Karzai’s home in Karz district of Kandahar.(20140729)

He has asserted authority within the Popolzai tribe, of which the Karzai clan is a part. "The Popolzais are very angry with Shah Wali another half brother of Hamid Karzai , and so they are going to Hashmat. They say he is their elder," says Hajji Ehsan Noorzai, a former chairman of the Kandahar provincial council.

Last Modified 2015-01-24
Established 2009-12-21