U.S. dismayed at Afghan release of drug smugglers

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai's recent pardon of five convicted heroin smugglers is a disappointing setback to Kabul's U.S.-backed fight against the narcotics trade, the State Department said on Wednesday.

A spokesman for Karzai said last week the five pardons took place several months ago after the intercession of tribal chiefs, long a tradition in such matters in Afghanistan.

One of those released was a close relative of Deen Mohammad, who is running Karzai's campaign for re-election in the August 20 presidential poll, a source with knowledge of the case said. The man was jailed for more than a decade in 2007 for smuggling more than 220 lbs (100 kg) of heroin.

"It is disappointing ... when successfully prosecuted traffickers are later released, as has occurred recently," the State department said in a statement.

"This undermines the work of the Afghan Ministries of the Interior and Counter Narcotics," it said.

The State Department said the U.S. Department of Justice, had given some $6 million (3.6 million pounds) to develop Afghanistan's Criminal Justice Task Force, a body set up in May 2005 to investigate and prosecute leading drug traffickers.

Karzai has been leading Afghanistan since the removal of the Taliban after a U.S.-led invasion in 2001 and won the country's first presidential poll three years later.

He has been under fire from Western leaders over poor governance, endemic corruption and for the booming drugs trade since the Taliban's fall.

Afghanistan is the biggest opium poppy producer in the world, with opium also funding the Taliban-led insurgency.

(Reporting by Paul Eckert, Editing by Sandra Maler)