2. Previous Functions of Ghulam Ghaus Ghaws Abu Bakr, Abubakar, Abubaker:
Governor Takhar Province
Governor Kapisa Province (20070821-20100913)

3. Biodata:
Gholam Gaus Abubakar, aka Abu Bakr aka Abu Baker Rafiyee, aka Ghaws, aka Abu Baker, aka Khoja Ghulam Gous Abu Bakar was suspended as a Governor in Kapisa Province because of slow pace of reconstruction in that province (20070821 - 20200913).

A major investigation into the influential Gholam Ghaus Abu Bakr accused of taking bribes has been shut down and its top prosecutor transferred to a unit that doesn’t handle corruption cases, Afghan and U.S. officials said. (20111011)

The closing of the investigation into the former governor of Kapisa province, Ghulam Qawis Abu Bakr, comes on the heels of a grim, unpublicized assessment by U.S. officials that no substantive corruption prosecutions were taking place in Afghanistan despite President Hamid Karzai’s pledge to root out graft.

U.S. officials had hoped the case would be the first conviction of a relatively significant person in Afghan government. While most of Abu Bakr’s influence is in Kapisa province, he is also connected to the Hizb-e-Islami political party, which the government has been trying to court in hopes of getting the group to cut its ties with militants.

Abu Bakr was suspended as governor after CIA Director David Petraeus, then the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, presented Karzai with documentation showing that he was colluding with the Taliban, according to an Afghan official in Kabul with direct knowledge of the incident.

The case against Abu Bakr opened 2010 after allegations surface d he had received a $200,000 bribe in exchange for the contract to build a cell tower, an Afghan official said.

Abu Bakr lives in Mahmud-i-Raqi, the capital of Kapisa province, in a large house. He has three other houses in Kabul, all built, according to the original witness statements, with stone and gravel paid for by foreign donations intended for roads, schools and clinics.

About 20 witnesses said the governor forced local construction companies to give him truckloads of gravel and stone for his expensive homes, according to the officials. The witnesses reportedly said the governor threatened to halt their construction projects if he didn’t get what he wanted. However, when prosecutors traveled to Kapisa in late June 2011 to get more evidence, the witnesses were no longer willing to cooperate. “They changed their story,” the Afghan official said. Prosecutors also met with Abu Bakr, who denied everything. Only one witness was still willing to testify, a man named Shah Agha who said Abu Bakr shut down his rock-crushing plant after he refused to donate 100 trucks of gravel — worth about $10,500 — for the construction of one of his houses. Agha said within an hour of giving his statement in Kabul, his phone started ringing.

The Abu Bakr case was abruptly closed, despite pleas from the prosecutor for more time to gather evidence, according to officials. Later, the top prosecutor was demoted, and sent to oversee conditions in Afghan prisons, according to an Afghan government document obtained by The Associated Press. Her pay was cut by $50 a month, or about a fourth of her monthly salary. At least three prosecutors who have persisted in sensitive investigations — two of them involving Abu Bakr — have been removed or transferred, either to other departments or to remote provinces, according to a senior U.S. official.

American officials are pressing the Afghan government to prosecute a former governor for what US investigators say is involvement in the killings of an American lieutenant colonel and a US servicewoman, as well as other alleged crimes.(20120329)  Details of US findings about Abu Bakr have not been previously disclosed. US investigators allege Abu Bakr ordered the May 2009 suicide bombing that killed Air Force Lt. Col. Mark Stratton, 39, and Senior Airman Ashton Goodman, a 21-year-old servicewoman working with him, according to a summary of the investigation. The report also alleges that Abu Bakr plotted to kill US, French and British ambassadors that November, and that he was involved in acts of extortion and corruption.

Abu Bakr denies the allegations and does not wish to speak to the media, said his son-in-law, Mohammed Iqbal Safi, a member of Afghanistan's parliament. Safi said rival government officials were trying to frame his father-in-law, and have "poisoned the Americans' minds."