KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - The fired police chief of Kandahar has denied any involvement in an explosive prison break last month.
In his first public comments since being dismissed last week, Gen. Syed Aqa Saqib told The Canadian Press that investigators have turned up no evidence that he participated in the plot.
The provincial police chief was among three high-profile security officials dismissed in the wake of a deadly attack that sent hundreds of inmates spilling out of Kandahar's Sarposa prison.
Government officials have said all three were dismissed for failing to stop the attack, and would also be investigated for their possible role in the affair.
Prison warden Abdul Qadir, also under investigation, has been arrested.
Saqib says he doesn't know whether any of the other men were involved, but says he has nothing to hide.
"Whatever they've said about me was not true," Saqib said.
"The investigators could not prove anything about me."
A delegation has been sent down from Kabul to investigate the incident, and Saqib says he has received assurances that Interior Minister Ali Ahmed Jalali no longer lists him as a suspect.
"The interior minister has taken his words back," Saqib said in a Pashto-language telephone interview.
The burly general says he's done with police work.
He says he intends to return to his hometown of Jalalabad and use his $15,000 life savings to open up a general store -- and maybe a used-car business.
"I'm not interested in police work anymore," he said.
"I want to rest, sit at home, and open my own business."
As for the Afghan government and the Canadians working to protect it, he says he wishes them the best of luck.
"It's not an easy task to bring securitry to a country like Afghanistan," he said.
"But I know the Canadians and Afghans are doing their best. The Canadians have been working hard."
The Afghan National Police is considered among the weakest and most corrupt institutions of the fragile new government.
In a recent interview Saqib himself declared that men wearing the uniform of his police force had kidnapped and robbed citizens, and could also be a threat to foreign troops.
But he said the men wearing those uniforms were not his police officers; they were imposters wearing phony uniforms counterfeited in other countries.
