KABUL, Afghanistan — On the television screen in a second-floor room in Kabul last month, Ahmad Ishchi watched it live: how justice in Afghanistan bends to the powerful.

Instead of being taken away in handcuffs, those accused of heinous crimes in this country can be seen strolling a red carpet.

In the winter of 2016, Mr. Ishchi went on national television to accuse Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, the vice president of a government bankrolled by the United States, of abducting him, and then punching and kicking him until a pool of blood formed under his feet. General Dostum, he said, next dropped his pants and tried — and failed — to rape him before asking his guards to sexually assault him with their guns.

During those televised interviews in which he described what had been done to him, Mr. Ishchi, 63, who was perceived as a rival to General Dostum’s leadership of Afghanistan’s Uzbek community, couldn’t sit straight because his wounds, verified by two medical forensic reports, were still too fresh.