VZCZCXYZ0000
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHHE #0860/01 3391311
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 051311Z DEC 07
FM AMEMBASSY HELSINKI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 3936
INFO RUEHZG/NATO EU COLLECTIVE
RUEHBUL/AMEMBASSY KABUL 0067

C O N F I D E N T I A L HELSINKI 000860 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR EUR/NB AND INL 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/05/2017 
TAGS: PGOV NATO MARR SNAR PREL MOPS FI AF
SUBJECT: AFGHANISTAN FREES FINNISH PEACEKEEPER'S KILLERS 
 
REF: A. REF A: THOME-EUR/NB E-MAILS 
     ¶B. MAY 2007 
     ¶C. REF B: HELSINKI 817 
     ¶D. REF C: HELSINKI 753 
     ¶E. REF D: HELSINKI 715 
 
Classified By: PolChief Gregory Thome, Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). 
 
¶1. (C) SUMMARY: The GoF continues to receive 
unsatisfactory answers from the GoA as to why President 
Karzai suddenly ordered the release of five Afghan men 
convicted in June for detonating a roadside bomb that 
killed a Finnish peacekeeper in Meymenah.  Unofficial 
reports from Afghanistan-based Finnish officers all seem 
to point to prisoner abuse and to corruption that may 
include top Karzai Government officials.  The Finnish 
MFA and MOD remain fully committed to Finland?s 
participation in ISAF and still hope it will increase in 
¶2008.  However, with a divided GOF engaged in a sharp 
debate over the question of Finland?s doing more in 
Afghanistan, many officials fear the killers' release 
could negatively impact public opinion.  END SUMMARY. 
 
BACKGROUND 
---------- 
¶2. (U) In May, a roadside bomb killed one Finnish 
soldier and wounded three Norwegians who were serving in 
ISAF's Meymenah Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in 
Faryab Province (Ref A).  In June, Afghan authorities 
convicted seven men in connection with the attack, 
originally condemning them to death but later reducing 
their sentence to 20 years in prison.  However, to the 
GoF's great surprise, the GoA abruptly freed five of the 
seven men in October, after President Karzai apparently 
issued them a pardon.  Two remain in prison. 
 
¶3. (SBU) Karzai's pardon of men the Finns still hold 
responsible for the deadly attack has prompted great 
concern on the highest level.  Finland's ambassador to 
Kabul has met with senior MFA and MOJ officials there, 
and on Nov. 29 President Tarja Halonen summoned the 
Afghan Ambassador to Finland (resident in Oslo) to 
express her concern about the matter and seek an 
explanation.  The GoF has also been in close 
communication with Norwegian officials, who we 
understand sent their MFA's political director to Kabul 
to seek answers from the Afghan attorney general. 
 
PRISONER MISTREATMENT AND CORRUPTION 
------------------------------------ 
¶4. (C) Despite the high-level efforts, however, the GoF 
has learned very little from the GoA.  According to the 
Finnish press, Afghan Ambassador Jawed Ludin told 
President Halonen that President Karzai believed that 
the men did not receive a fair trial, and pardoned them 
on that basis.  He assured her that further 
investigation, a full report, and possibly a new trial 
would follow.  However, MFA Undersecretary for Political 
Affairs Markus Lyra told DCM and PolChief privately 
that, in fact, Ludin's comments to the President were 
evasive and occasionally defensive.  In effect "he 
really didn't address the issue in detail at all," Lyra 
reported.  Other Finnish officials have met with 
similarly unsatisfying Afghan responses.  The Finnish 
Embassy's formal diplomatic notes seeking a general 
explanation have gone unanswered in Kabul, and the MFA 
has now provided its Ambassador a series of specific 
questions along with instructions to seek meetings with 
the attorney general and officials in Karzai's office to 
get them answered, Lyra reported.  Other Finnish 
contacts also told us that the Norwegian Political 
Director's meeting with the Afghan attorney general went 
very poorly;  apparently the AG became quite angry and 
ended the meeting abruptly, saying simply that the five 
were probably released in accordance with the Afghan 
tradition of pardoning some criminals to commemorate the 
Eid-al-Fitr holiday. 
 
¶5. (C) Informally at other levels, Finnish military and 
civilian officers in Afghanistan have pieced together a 
picture of what they believe really happened.  Although 
at times contradictory, the information they have 
gathered points to probable prisoner mistreatment before 
the sentencing and corruption in connection with the 
pardon, perhaps even on the highest level.  According to 
the MFA office director for Central Asia, the seven men 
were guilty, as far as the Finns can determine.  But 
they were also mistreated by police and imprisoned 
without a real trial.  (The Finns believe a judge may 
have simply signed the conviction, and later the order 
to commute the sentence from death to 20 years, based on 
a recommendation from police.)  Most disturbing of all, 
he added, money changed hands in connection with the 
pardon -- with the clearest indication being that two of 
the seven, whose families could not find sufficient 
funds, remain imprisoned. 
 
COMMENT 
------- 
¶6. (C) GoF officials are not naive about the corruption, 
executive interference and other abuses that may be 
commonplace within the Afghan judicial system.  However, 
their search for something resembling a plausible 
official answer in this case stems in part from a desire 
to ensure that the event does not prompt an outburst of 
negative Finnish public opinion toward participation in 
the ISAF mission.  Finland has been engaged for months 
in a vigorous public debate over the question of whether 
or not to increase its commitments in Afghanistan -- and 
the GoF is deeply divided on the political level (see 
reftels).  Clearly, the MOD and MFA officials who favor 
such increases do not want the arbitrary freeing of a 
peacekeeper's killers to become part of the public 
debate. 
WARE