Photographs of Syed Ahmad Shah Saadat, a former Afghanistan information minister, captured by German journalist Josa Mania-Schlegel, have gone viral on social media.
“A few days ago, I met a man who claimed to have been the Afghan communications minister... I asked what he was doing in Leipzig. ‘I'm driving out of Essen for Lieferando’ [a food delivery service]’,” the journalist wrote on Twitter. The journalist claimed he had spotted Saadat on the streets of Leipzig while he was delivering pizzas on a bicycle.
https://twitter.com/JosaMania/status/1428983082724569097?s=20
In the photographs, Saadat can be seen dressed in an orange shirt with a bag hung on his back. Talking to Sky News Arabia, Saadat confirmed that the pictures circulating were indeed his.
Saadat joined Ashraf Ghani’s government as a cabinet minister in 2018. He served for two years as the Afghanistan information and technology minister and later resigned in 2020.
He then reportedly arrived in Germany in December last year. Saadat holds two master’s degrees in communications and electronic engineering from Oxford University.
When asked about the developments in Afghanistan, Saadat told the media that, “The fall of the Ashraf Ghani’s government so quickly was not expected.”