KABUL, Afghanistan - The Afghan attorney general's office has arrested two money changers and two employees of the nation's electoral commission on allegations of fraud in the September parliamentary elections, the deputy attorney general said Thursday.
The arrests are the latest problem to overshadow the Afghan ballot, which has been seen as a test of President Hamid Karzai's commitment to curb corruption in his government since last year's fraud-ridden presidential election.
Deputy Attorney General Rahmatullah Nazari said an arrest warrant has also been issued for a third employee of Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission.
"One important person, who has a role in this case, has not yet been arrested," Nazari said. "The person not yet arrested is an IEC employee -- high-ranking -- one who is making decisions."
He declined to name those arrested or which parliamentary races were involved.
IEC spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor declined to comment, saying the commission did not know which of its more than 85,000 employees had been arrested.
Attorney General Mohammad Ishaq Alako, who was appointed by Karzai, claimed earlier this week that the election was bought and sold by well-connected Afghans through secret dealings in Dubai and in Kabul's money market.
Nazari told reporters at the attorney general's office that prosecutors were investigating at least five cases of election bribery involving sums of money ranging from $80,000 and $220,000.
"These are the bribe papers that are made in the money market," Nazari said, holding up papers that named candidates, money changers and were marked by thumbprints.
The attorney general's role in investigating alleged criminal activities in the election has sparked a controversy. Nazari criticized the IEC for releasing the final election results for 33 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces on Wednesday before the attorney general's investigations were completed. The attorney general has no authority to invalidate returns.
Still, there has been speculation among Western diplomats that Karzai or his advisers, who might be unhappy with the election results, were pushing the attorney general's office to probe election-related fraud and throw the victories of certain candidates into doubt.
Nazari denied these allegations. He said that after the investigation was completed -- hopefully within a month -- the results would be handed to the Supreme Court.
Election organizers first excluded about 1.3 million ballots -- nearly a quarter of the total -- for fraud. Then the Electoral Complaints Commission disqualified 19 winning candidates for misconduct and threw out ballots from hundreds more polling stations earlier this week.
More than 4,000 complaints have been filed with the commission, which has submitted 413 of the complaints to the attorney general's office for criminal prosecution.
"This election occurred with a high level of corruption and the cases that we are investigating -- they have all been submitted to us," Nazari said.
Separately, a NATO service member died in an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan on Sunday and coalition forces confirmed killing an insurgent leader who was on their top 25 list of militant targets. The alliance did not disclose the nationality or details of the service member's death. It brings to 47 the number who have died so far this month.
NATO said it confirmed that two other militants taken into custody on Nov. 22 also were on their top 25 list of targets. Two others insurgent facilitators were arrested on separate operations Thursday in eastern Afghanistan, it added. All were members of the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network operating on Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan.
It identified the Haqqani network leader as Wahidullah and said he was killed by an airstrike on Nov. 22 in Khost province's Sabari district. Many Afghans use a single name. NATO said it has killed or captured 19 Haqqani leaders in Khost so far this month.
