INTERVIEW - Reforms needed to fight Afghan graft: ex-prosecutor

By Sayed Salahuddin

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan needs to reform its judiciary and police to make them capable of fighting corruption, rather than set up a new watchdog as recommended by the West, the country's former top prosecutor said on Thursday.

Corruption in Afghanistan has become a crucial issue for newly re-elected President Hamid Karzai, with U.S. officials tying the future of the military operation defending his government to his efforts to stop graft.

In an interview, Abdul Jabar Sabet, who served as Afghanistan's top prosecutor for nearly two years until July 2008, said poor salaries of police forced them to take bribes, while top officials were enriching themselves with impunity.

"Here we have two types of people involved in corruption: poor government officials who need it for survival and those officials who have houses in Kabul and other parts of the country, but want to have one (also) in Dubai," he told Reuters.

U.S. officials have discussed a proposal to create an anti-corruption watchdog. Sabet said that was likely to be a waste of money, as long as the police, judges and prosecutors are so poorly trained and paid.

"At the end of the day any case under the law will have to be dealt with by the police, then investigated by the related prosecutor and finally the judiciary will decide on it," Sabet told Reuters.

"The commissions will have the role of observers and will not have effective impact in reducing corruption."