Kabul ? Afghan government officials are not rushing to oust the man they chose to bring fresh and credible governance to a town just seized from the Taliban, but his newly disclosed violent criminal record in Germany will be investigated further, officials said Saturday.

Court records and news reports in Germany show that Abdul Zahir, who has been appointed as civilian chief in Marjah, served part of a more than four-year prison sentence for stabbing his son in 1998. An American official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic, also confirmed Zahir has a criminal record in Germany.

Zahir denies he committed any crime.

“What we’re going to do is investigate more and see what exactly happened and then we will decide,” said Barna Karami, deputy of the Afghanistan Independent Directorate of Local Government, which works to boost the effectiveness of local governments.

“For any claims, there are two sides. So you have to carefully evaluate all those claims and investigate it, and once you come to a good judgment then you make a decision.”

Zahir’s criminal record is at issue because he’s tasked with convincing residents of Marjah in Helmand province that the Afghan central government can provide for them better than the Taliban. The insurgents were routed during a three-week offensive by thousands of U.S., NATO and Afghan troops, and Zahir was appointed the face of a new local government — a key test of NATO’s counterinsurgency strategy since President Barack Obama dispatched 30,000 reinforcements to the war.

Adm. Gregory Smith, director of communications for NATO, said the international alliance strongly supported Helmand Gov. Gulab Mangal, who picked Zahir for the job. “Zahir, from our reporting, is doing good work down there,” Smith said Saturday, adding that NATO is not pushing Afghan officials to find someone else for the job.

Zahir said he lived in Germany for 15 years before returning to Afghanistan in 2000. He said he worked in Germany at a hotel and a laundry service. It was during this time that he was sentenced for attempted manslaughter.

“I was not a killer. I was not a smuggler. … I didn’t commit any crime,” Zahir told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Friday evening. He said allegations of a criminal record were “all a lie” and accused his adversaries in Afghanistan of trying to tarnish his reputation.