WASHINGTON — An American man who was kidnapped greater than two years in the past whereas touring by way of Afghanistan as a vacationer has been launched by the Taliban in a take care of the Trump administration that Qatari negotiators helped dealer, the State Division mentioned Thursday.
George Glezmann, an airline mechanic from Atlanta, is the third American detainee to be launched by the Taliban since January. He was seized by the Taliban’s intelligence providers in December 2022 and was designated by the U.S. authorities as wrongfully detained the next 12 months.
In a press release, Secretary of State Marco Rubio mentioned Glezmann was on his approach again to the US to be reunited together with his spouse, Aleksandra, and praised Qatar for “steadfast dedication and diplomatic efforts” that he mentioned had been “instrumental in securing George’s launch.”
“George’s launch is a constructive and constructive step,” Rubio mentioned. “It is usually a reminder that different People are nonetheless detained in Afghanistan. President Trump will proceed his tireless work to free ALL People unjustly detained all over the world.”
Glezmann was being accompanied again to the US, by way of Qatar’s capital, Doha, by Adam Boehler, who has been dealing with hostage points for President Donald Trump’s administration. The Taliban disclosed earlier Thursday that Boehler had been assembly on hostage points with a delegation that included Afghan International Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi.
The discharge of Glezmann, who’s in his mid-60s, is a part of what the Taliban has beforehand described because the “normalization” of ties between the U.S. and Afghanistan following the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Most nations nonetheless don’t acknowledge the Taliban’s rule.
Glezmann’s launch follows a separate deal, organized in January within the ultimate days of the Biden administration and likewise mediated by the Qataris, that secured the releases of Ryan Corbett and William McKenty.
The Taliban’s International Ministry in Kabul mentioned on the time that these two U.S. residents had been exchanged for Khan Mohammed, who was detained on the battlefield in Nangarhar, Afghanistan, and later taken to the U.S, the place he was sentenced to 2 life phrases in 2008 after being convicted below U.S. narco-terrorism legal guidelines.
Not like in that association, the U.S. didn’t quit any prisoner to safe Glezmann’s launch, which was completed as a goodwill gesture, in response to an official briefed on the matter who insisted on anonymity as a result of sensitivity of the negotiations.
President Joe Biden contemplated earlier than he left workplace an earlier proposal that might have concerned the discharge of Glezmann and different People for Muhammad Rahim, one of many remaining detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. However Biden advised households throughout a name in January that he wouldn’t assist buying and selling Rahim except the Taliban launched Mahmood Habibi, an Afghan-American businessman who labored as a contractor for a Kabul-based telecommunications firm and vanished in 2022.
The FBI and Habibi’s household have mentioned they consider Habibi was taken by Taliban forces, however the Taliban has denied holding him. Representatives for Habibi on Thursday cited what they mentioned was “overwhelming proof” that he was arrested by the Taliban after his residence was searched by folks figuring out themselves as a part of the Taliban’s safety service.
“We’re assured that the Trump Administration will maintain agency that my brother must be launched for relations with the U.S. to maneuver ahead,” certainly one of Habibi’s brothers, Ahmad, mentioned in a press release. “We now have cause to be assured Mahmood is alive and in Taliban custody, regardless of their hole denials of holding him. My brother is an harmless man who has been held away from his spouse, younger daughter, and aged dad and mom for 953 days.”
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Related Press writers Victoria Eastwood in Cairo and Munir Ahmed in Islamabad contributed to this report.
