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ISLAMABAD: Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Wednesday denied reports he took large sums of money as he fled Afghanistan when the Taliban took over.
Ghani was speaking in a video streamed on Facebook, his first public comments since it was confirmed he was in the United Arab Emirates.
The UAE said on Wednesday it is hosting Ghani and his family on humanitarian grounds.
Ghani’s whereabouts had been unknown after he left Kabul on Sunday. Russian embassy officials told the media on Monday the Afghan president had fled with cars and a helicopter full of cash.
“Accusations I took money with me are complexly baseless, they are lies,” Ghani said in the video stream, as quoted by Reuters.
Bitterly criticized, also by his former cabinet members, for leaving the country, Ghani said he would continue his efforts for Afghanistan and had left to avoid bloodshed.
“I am in consultation with others until I will return so that I can continue my efforts for justice for Afghans,” he said. “If I had stayed, I would be witnessing bloodshed in Kabul.”
The collapse of the Afghan government capped a lightning advance by the Taliban who have seized most of Afghan cities in just 10 days, with relatively little bloodshed.
The takeover came as US President Joe Biden moved to complete the withdrawal of US troops from the war-battered country.
The Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, when they were ousted by a US-led invasion for protecting Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on America.
The two decades of war that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.