Afghan Chief Gets Life in U.S. Prison
May 4th, 2009 by Rick
Check out the new scapegoat poster child for the U.S.’s war on drugs.
Bashir Noorzai, 45, a once powerful Afghani Tribal leader, was ordered by an American judge to pay a fine of $25,000 and spend the rest of his life in a federal prison for conspiring to import, manufacture and distribute $50m worth of heroin.
Before his 2005 arrest, Noorzai had aligned himself with his old friend Mullah Mohammad Omar and the Taliban, formed his own army and was at the helm of a heroin empire involving some of his tribe and a million people in southern and western Afghanistan and Pakistan. At that time he was one of the most powerful and dangerous narcotics traffickers in the world.
In 2005, he came to the United States after being invited to speak with government officials. He was interviewed by investigators for 11 days, at a hotel near the former World Trade Center site and then arrested.
