Afghan Biographies

Karzai, Mahmood Mahmoud


Name Karzai, Mahmood Mahmoud
Ethnic backgr. Pashtun
Date of birth 1955
Function/Grade Ex Minister
History and Biodata

2. Biodata Mahmood Karzai:
Minister of Urban Development and Housing (20201130)
3. Biodata:
Karzai_MahmoodMahmoud Karzai was born 1955 in Kandahar Province. He is a elder brother of President Hamid Karzai.  Before 20010911 Mahmoud Karzai had Helmand Restaurant in San Francisco, Helmand Restaurant in Cambridge, MA., Viva Burritos in Boston, MA., Tampico Mexican Grill in Baltimore (2004) - less than two years later, he recast the place as a french restaurant, Limoges Gourmet. He has land rights in Oakland, CA., land rights in Orinda., CA., property in Glenwood, MD., a commercial building in Baltimore, MD., a parking lot business near his restaurant in San Francisco, land rights and a parking lot business next to his building in Baltimore in Maryland.

Mahmoud Karzai has major interest in the Afghanistan's only cement factory, its dominant bank, its most ambitious real estate development, its only Toyota distributorship and four coal mines”. His real estate project in Kandahar, it is governed by five partners who take pride in approaching a province overwhelmed with security problems that others consider too risky. All income from the sales of this project is held within the company bank accounts as refundable deposits.

This is because the Ministry of Defense refuses to turn the land over to the Kandahar municipality, which it rightly belongs to. His contract is with the municipality of Kandahar, which, of course, wholly supports the project due to the amount of development we continue to achieve in such a volatile region. In order to implement the real estate project, called Aynomina, Mahmoud Karzai obtained loans from OPIC based on his credit and his equity.

Zalmay Khalilzad, the former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan said: “People in business would come to me and complain that Mahmoud always wanted a percentage of the new businesses!" Karzai took on his biggest venture when he and other investors assumed control of Afghanistan’s only cement factory. Operating rights for the plant were put for auction by the Ministry of Mines, and Karzai and his partners won when they were the only bidders to show up with 25 million in cash required that. Ashraf Ghani, a former Afghan finance minister said that when president Karzai asked him to join his government, he was concerned about the potential for insider dealing by the Karzai Family.

Mahmud Karzai, the president's brother and third-largest shareholder of Kabul Bank with a 7% stake, says the lender's assets are roughly equal to the $1.3 billion in deposits. Afghanistan's central bank had forced out the lender's chairman and chief executive—its two biggest shareholders—amid allegations they made hundreds of millions of dollars in sometimes clandestine loans to themselves and Afghan government insiders.

Kabul Bank's former chairman, Sherkhan Farnood, used bank money to buy more than $150 million in properties in Dubai in his and his wife's name. Large loans were given to powerful Afghans, including brothers of President Karzai and First Vice President Muhammad Fahim. U.S. officials say the bank used one of Afghanistan's traditional hawala money transfer outfits to move hundreds of millions of dollars out of the country in an apparent attempt to avoid detection, though it is not clear what the money was then used for.

U.S. prosecutors have launched a criminal probe of Mahmood Karzai one of the brothers of Afghan President Hamid Karzai to determine whether he should be charged with tax evasion, racketeering, or extortion, according to unnamed sources quoted in "The Wall Street Journal." The paper notes that "any move to indict Mahmood Karzai, who is a U.S. citizen, carries huge risks for American officials, whose anticorruption efforts have often provoked sharp backlashes from President Karzai." Mahmud Karzai, a brother of Afghanistan's president, has told RFE/RL he has renounced his U.S. citizenship to launch a political career. He would not confirm on January 24 whether he intended to run in Afghanistan's 2014 presidential election.(20130124)

 

"Mahmoud Karzai himself made more than 10 forged trading licenses – it still exists in the files – and he received loans on the basis of that. So then, why is he not now investigated by the judicial bodies? " Sibghatullah Tamim the lawyer of Shir Khan Farnood (Kabil Bank) asked.(20130210) Mahmoud said that any reports of him owing money were false. He made the statement after the special tribunal chief Shams Rahman Shams stated that he and Fahim still owed money to Kabul Bank.

Afghanistan based Pashtu language newspaper Benawa recently published a report citing Mahmoud Karzai as saying that, “It is no more important for me that Pashtuns should remain in power, since the Pashtun leaders have not served Afghanistan to their best during the past 300 years. We (offspring of Ahmadshah Baba and Mirwais Nika ) should stop deceiving ourselves and others.”(20130513)
Mahmud Karzai, the elder brother of President Hamid Karzai endorsed Abdullah Abdullah in the second round of 2014 presidential election.(20140526)

Mahmood Karzai said during a meeting with the Minister of Urban Development and Housing Syed Sadat Mansoor Naderi that Kandahar entrepreneurs are planning to build a medicines manufacturing company with the support of the Indian experts. He introduced several areas planned for the establishment of the factory in Aino Meena township of Kandahar city.(20170706)
 

Mahmood Karzai, the brother of the former president Hamid Karzai was also a shareholder of Kabul bank and, alongside Fahim’s uncle, there have been concerns that he sought to use his closeness to the very top of Afghanistan’s leadership to assist in protecting the bank from greater scrutiny.
 

In an email, Mahmood Karzai confirmed ownership of a property in Dubai and said he had lived in the country since 2007. He denied any wrongdoing or corruption, and said he had attempted to sue the private investigation firm Kroll for a report it wrote alleging misconduct on his part in Afghanistan.(20191104)

Mahmud Karzai was nominated as minister of Urban Development and Housing with 154 out of 248 votes. (20201130) 

 

Due to legal issues former president Hamid Karzai’s brother has been barred from flying abroad and could not leave for UAE. Mahmood Karzai is an ex-minister of urban development. Based on media reports, meanwhile, Mahmood Karzai was arrested by the Taliban at the Kabul airport on Saturday evening (20221105)  and was taken to an unknown location when he intended to travel to the United Arab Emirates.(20221106)

Mahmood Karzai, said that he has been prohibited from traveling abroad due to unsolved problems that exist in Ayno Mina town in the southern province of Kandahar. He also confirmed that he was not allowed to travel due to problems of the AFCO International company which worked on the Ayno Mina town in Kandahar.(20221108)

 

Karzai has US citizenship.

He speaks Pashtu and English.

Last Modified 2022-11-09
Established 2009-10-16