Former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani 'almost certainly' didn't flee Kabul with millions in cash: US watchdog

One of the US government watchdogs has claimed that former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani 'almost certainly' did not flee Kabul with millions in cash as it fell to the Taliban.

Former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani almost certainly did not flee Kabul as it fell to the Taliban with millions of dollars in stolen cash, a US government watchdog's report said Monday.

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) report, which will be published on Tuesday, is an interim document, as the office is still awaiting answers to questions sent to Ghani.

First reported by Politico, it interviews witnesses as well as officials who were in the helicopter convoy with Ghani as they hastily fled the Presidential Palace in Kabul while the Taliban marched into the capital on August 15, 2021.

Read: Former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani fled with cars, chopper full of cash, claims Russia

In subsequent days, multiple reports suggested that Ghani and the other officials took up to $169 million in Afghan government money with them. Ghani has always fiercely denied these claims.

"Although SIGAR found that some cash was taken from the grounds of the palace and loaded onto these helicopters, evidence indicates that this number did not exceed $1 million and may have been closer in value to $500,000," the report states.

It based that assessment heavily on interviews with the witnesses and officials involved, all of whom said they saw no signs of such large amounts of cash on the helicopters already overloaded with people fleeing for their lives.