KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan's central bank governor has resigned and fled to the United States, saying his life is in danger over a corruption probe targeting influential figures connected to the government.

President Hamid Karzai's government on Tuesday dismissed the claims made by Abdul Qadir Fitrat, chairman of Da Afghanistan Bank, insisting his life was not under threat and calling him a "runaway governor".

"I announce my resignation from the position of governor of the central bank of Afghanistan immediately," Fitrat said in a statement issued as he visited the United States, where he reportedly has permanent residency.

"Unfortunately, central bank's independence on regulatory and supervisory matters has recently been undermined by the repeated interference of high-level political authorities," he said.

The governor has claimed his role in an investigation into the near-collapse last year of Kabul Bank, the war-torn country's largest private lender, had put him in peril.

"My life was completely in danger and this was particularly true after I spoke to the parliament and exposed some people who are responsible for the crisis of Kabul Bank," he was quoted as saying by the BBC.

In April, Fitrat named in parliament high-profile figures who were allegedly involved in a corruption scandal amounting to nearly $1 billion at Kabul Bank, which handles the pay of thousands of Afghan civil servants.

The bank was founded in 2004 by Sherkhan Farnood, a leading international poker player. Its co-owners included Mahmood Karzai, a brother of President Karzai, and a brother of Vice-President Mohammad Qasim Fahim. The scandal has highlighted chaos and corruption in Afghanistan's financial system at a time when US-led combat troops are due to start leaving the country, a decade after ousting the fundamentalist Taliban regime.

US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland confirmed Fitrat was in Washington, adding: "If there were to be a change of leadership at the Afghan central bank, we would continue to encourage that government to take all the necessary steps to reform and strengthen the financial sector."

Agence France-Presse

(China Daily 06/29/2011 page11)