According to a Taliban spokesperson, Haji Bashir Noorzai, a senior Taliban official, was released on Monday after spending decades in American detention. Sources in the Afghan official media claim that he was one of the last Afghans held at the Guantanamo Bay prison.
The US released the official on Monday in return for the Taliban releasing American engineer Mark Frerichs, according to the Taliban’s acting foreign minister. Mohammad Naeem, a Taliban spokesman stationed in Doha, tweeted that ‘Honorable Haji Bashir was liberated after two decades in captivity and landed in Kabul today’.
— AhmadullahMuttaqi.???????? ???? (@Ahmadmuttaqi01) September 19, 2022
Bashir Noorzai, an Afghan tribal leader, was apprehended and charged with smuggling heroin into the US for more than $50 million. Later, Noorzai’s lawyer refuted claims that his client was a drug dealer and argued that the charges against him should be withdrawn since American government operatives had misled Noorzai into believing he wouldn’t be jailed.
At a news conference in Kabul, acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi announced to the public that they had exchanged Frerichs on Monday morning and received Haji Bashir Noorzai, who had spent decades in American custody after being accused of drug offences. Engineer Frerichs, a former member of the US Navy from Lombard, Illinois, worked for ten years on construction initiatives in Afghanistan. Beginning in February 2020, he was taken hostage.
Following the death of Ayman al-Zawahiri in July, the transfer raises important issues about the Taliban and US’s reengagement. The US’s submission to Taliban demands and the Taliban’s use of coercion are both significant topics for discussion in this context.
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