Major Crimes Task Force - A Key Element of the Road Map

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 KABUL 003419 SENSITIVE SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR SCA/A, SRAP, INL FBI FOR DIRECTOR DEA FOR HEADQUARTERS DOJ FOR HEADQUARTERS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: KJUS PGOV EAID KCRM KCOR AMGT AF SUBJECT: Major Crimes Task Force - A Key Element of the Road Map for Fighting Corruption and Serious Crimes in Afghanistan REF: KABUL 3185 ¶1. (U) Summary: The Federal Bureau of Investigation will soon complete construction of a facility in Kabul to house the Major Crimes Task Force (MCTF). We see the MCTF as our flagship anti-corruption program, and hope FBI Director will be able to visit the facility site next month as a means of recognizing the most effective U.S.-Afghan action against corruption as real and expanding. In partnership with the Afghan government, the UK, and other U.S. agencies, the MCTF will investigate serious crimes -- kidnapping, corruption, and organized crime -- in Afghanistan. The MCTF will be a key component in U.S.-Afghan efforts to fight corruption. To maximize the MCTF's effectiveness, we should support integral and necessary measures to strengthen the rule of law, such as ourproposal to create an Afghan judicial security force (reftel). Our efforts against corruption will require sustained, skillful, foreign and Afghan investment in programs and human capital. End summary. U.S. and UK Partner with Afghans to Fight Serious Crime and Corruption -------------- ¶2. (U) The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is working closely with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ),the Combined Security Transition Command (CSTC-A),the State Department/INL and the UK's Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) to build a Major Crimes Task Force (MCTF). These U.S. and UK law enforcement agencies are working as a team with the Afghan Ministry of Interior (MOI), National Directorate of Security (NDS) and Attorney General's Office (AGO) to fight serious crime (kidnapping, corruption, and organized crime) in Afghanistan. ¶3. (U) The FBI will assign ten additional FBI Special Agent mentors to cooperate with and develop the skills of approximately 100 Afghan MOI and NDS investigators at the MCTF. (Five agents are currently assigned.) Most will serve one-year tours. The FBI is initiating its own version of "Afghan Hands" to develop FBI officers' experience in support of the MCTF. (Note: "Afghan Hands" is a DOD manning and training program, approved by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, designed to develop a core cadre of expert personnel to conduct repeated assignments in critical billets in Afghanistan. End note.) FBI Afghan Hands will consist of four months of language training followed by an eight-month assignment in Afghanistan. ¶4. (U) In addition, four UK mentors and 30 vetted NDS and MOI investigators (15 each),will form the MCTF's Corruption Investigation Unit. The Unit will focus on high level Afghan corruption with no U.S. nexus. Trained and vetted prosecutors currently working at the Anti-Corruption Unit of the Afghan Attorney General's office will support the MCTF. In addition, the Office of the Special Investigator General (SIGAR) -- with 18 investigators, inspectors, and auditors in Afghanistan -- and the International Contract and Corruption Task Force - Afghanistan (ICCTF) will also support the MCTF. (Note: The ICCTF is a multi-agency law enforcement task force focused on combating contract fraud and public corruption relating to U.S. Government spending. End Note.) Camp Falcon: Future Home of the MCTF -------------- ¶5. (U) Our mission interagency law enforcement team strongly supports the FBI's conclusion that establishing a permanent home for the interagency MCTF is necessary to: (1) build significant Afghan anti-corruption capabilities, and (2) attract like-minded entities to build on existing anti-corruption efforts. We have identified Camp Falcon as the best site, and construction of the MCTF facility is underway. The SOCA expects to move into the Camp in November ¶2009. The MCTF should be fully operational by January 2010. Camp Falcon is located near the Kabul Airport, and adjacent to other U.S.-built facilities, including the new Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) facility and the Counter-Narcotics Justice Center (CNJC). Comment -------------- ¶6. (SBU) The MCTF is an emerging interagency and international cooperation success story with the MCTF playing a pivotal role in U.S. and Afghan anti-corruption efforts. It will prosecute high-level corruption cases referred through the corruption KABUL 00003419 002 OF 002 reporting process recently launched by the U.S. Embassy in partnership with NATO (see septel and Fragmentary Order number 498-2009). As part of the Embassy's anti-corruption strategy, the MCTF could serve as the prosecution arm of the High Office of Oversight (or successor institution),the Afghan government's anti-corruption watchdog. ¶7. (SBU) However, Afghan courts now cannot effectively prosecute MCTF cases because of severe capacity limitations, judicial corruption, and lack of security for judges and prosecutors. Ultimately, U.S.-supported Afghan efforts to fight corruption will fail without secure and independent courts. We are working to build the capacity and independence of Afghan courts with initiatives that would (1) provide judicial security (reftel),(2) increase salaries for prosecutors, and (3) build judicial capacity at the national and regional levels. We also advocate the creation of a court of special jurisdiction, based on the successful model of the Counter-Narcotics Justice Center, to prosecute MCTF cases. All of these efforts will require significant and persistent human and program investment, necessarily from foreign sources. As always, this raises the issue of sustainability. However, without such investment in effective rule of law capacity, there will be little left of the Afghan government (and our strategic policy interest in its existence and effectiveness) to sustain. End comment. EIKENBERRY