Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Dec 29: Former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who fled the country after the Taliban took over Kabul in August 2021, has been named as one of the most corrupt officials of the year by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko topped the list. Lukashenko has clung to power in Minsk since 1993, rigging elections, torturing critics, arresting and beating protesters, all with the aid and approval of the Kremlin.
“Ghani certainly deserves an award, too. He was breathtaking in both corruption and gross incompetence. He deserted his people, leaving them to misery and death so he could live among the corrupt former state officials in the moral cesspool that is the UAE,” said OCCRP.
Others included in the list were Syrian dictator Bashar Hafez al-Assad, Turkish President Recip Tayyip Erdogan, and Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.
According to the OCCRP, while clinging to power, Assad led Syria into a catastrophic civil war and robbed the country of millions of dollars.
Erdogan, on the other hand, was presiding over a corrupt government that used state-owned banks to launder Chinese funds for Iranian oil, according to the group.
Kurz, the leader of the Austrian People’s Party (OVP), was charged with embezzlement and graft, along with nine other politicians and media figures.
According to the OCCRP, Lukashenko consolidated unlimited power at home while ignoring international criticism. Instead, he exacerbated the refugee crisis in response to EU sanctions against his country, according to the statement. The group went on to say that Lukashenko was oblivious to the plight of his own citizens and desperate migrants, including children, who were shivering, hungry, and barred from settling in Belarus.
Notably, Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) is a non-profit investigative news reporting platform for independent media outlets around the world.
