Ex-ISI chief named in Credit Suisse leak that unmasks global corruption

A former head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, Akhtar Abdur Rahman Khan, has been named among the many from around the world who have been exposed in a massive leak of secret banking data from Credit Suisse that unmasked massive unmasks global corruption and crime, reports The Dawn.

Akhtar Abdur Rahman Khan has also been a close aide to former Pakistan President General Ziaul Haq, and has been largely credited with establishing the mujahideen network to counter Russia's invasion of Afghanistan.

Dubbed the "Suisse secrets", this massive trove was provided to Suddeutsche Zeitung, a German newspaper, by a whistleblower and claims to have exposed the secret wealth of clients notorious for drug trafficking, money laundering and corruption.

According to the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a network of journalists from around the world that sifted through the data, accounts identified as potentially problematic held over $8 billion in assets.

The revelations indicate failures of due diligence by the bank in violation of commitments made to authorities to disown shady clients. The data covers accounts that were open from the 1940s until well into the 2010s but not the bank's current operations.

Senior intelligence officials and their offspring from several countries that cooperated with the US also had money stashed at Credit Suisse, reported The New York Times.

"As the head of the Pakistani intelligence agency, General Akhtar Abdur Rahman Khan helped funnel billions of dollars in cash and other aid from the US and other countries to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan to support their fight against the Soviet Union," the newspaper said in a report.

It added that an account was opened in the name of three of General Akhtar's sons in 1985, even though he never faced charges of stealing aid money. Years later, the paper said, "the account would grow to hold $3.7 million, the leaked records show".

The Saudi Arabian and US funding for mujahideen fighters battling Russia's presence in Afghanistan would go to the CIA's Swiss bank account, an OCCRP report claimed.

"End recipient in the process was Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence group (ISI), (at the time) led by Akhtar," the report said.

According to the OCCRP, the data also reveals that 15 intelligence figures from around the world, or their close family members, have held accounts at Credit Suisse.