Afghan Vice President Flies to Turkey Amid Torture and Rape Allegations<br />By MUJIB MASHALMAY 19, 2017<br />KABUL, Afghanistan — In the dark of night and amid a criminal investigation into rape accusations against him, Afghanistan’s embattled vice president, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, left for Turkey on Friday in what Afghan<br />and Western officials suggested could be another long exile for the former warlord.<br />Twice, Mr. Ghani had spoken to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey,<br />and a Turkish plane once came to Kabul to pick up General Dostum, but he refused to go, Afghan officials said.<br />General Dostum has been fighting for political survival for months after a northern elder claimed he had been abducted from a sports match<br />and then tortured and raped by the vice president and his guards.<br />After those accusations were made public, the government of President Ashraf Ghani<br />and his Western backers made a strong initial push to get General Dostum to surrender for questioning.<br />The younger Dostum has been taking a more prominent role in the decision-making of his father’s Junbish<br />party as the vice president has remained under de facto house arrest in his residence in central Kabul.<br />On Friday, they said, General Dostum showed no such hesitation, with his eldest<br />son, Batur, playing an important role in persuading his father to leave.
