KABUL, Aug 30: Afghan warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum has rejected accusations that some 1,000 Taliban prisoners suffocated while in his custody and pledged to cooperate with any investigation into the deaths.

Dostum, in a joint statement with two other senior Northern Alliance commanders, admitted that some 200 Taliban followers died in containers while they were being shipped to a prison at his northern Shebarghan stronghold last year after a lengthy siege in the city of Kunduz.

But the statement said the deaths were mainly as a result of injuries sustained by the prisoners in the fighting at Kunduz and emphasized that their deaths were not intentional.

“The operation of sending prisoners to Shebarghan prison continued for four days. In no case were any prisoners killed. In no case was there any intention that they should die in containers,” it said.

“It was of our utmost interest and that of the international coalition to interrogate the prisoners.”

The commanders listed suffocation as one of several causes of the 200 deaths they accepted.

“Most of (the deaths) were due to wounds suffered in the fighting but also due to disease, suffocation, suicide and a general weakness after weeks of intense fighting and bombardment.”

A report by Newsweek magazine earlier this month cited a witness quoted in an internal United Nations memorandum who said some 960 people died in the containers.

The memorandum said their bodies were now buried in the sands of Dasht-i-Leili, near Shebarghan.

But the statement, which was also signed by the powerful Tajik commander Atta Mohammad and local Hazara leader Sardar Mohammad Sahidi, said that “we believe these numbers are totally inaccurate”.

The statement said that United Nations investigators and human rights teams had been given full access to the site.

“We have been open to the best of our ability about the numbers and events.... Both the UN and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) have never confirmed the numbers.”

Initial investigations by the UN on a handful bodies have determined that they died of suffocation.—AFP