![]() ![]() ![]() release Noorzai in exchange for Frerichs. Even before their takeover of Afghanistan in August last year, the Taliban had demanded the U.S. officials across two presidential administrations had tried unsuccessfully to get him home. The publication said it obtained the clip from an unidentified individual in Afghanistan. He was last seen in a video posted last spring by The New Yorker i n which he appeared in traditional Afghan clothing and pleaded for his release. At the time of his sentencing, the then-top federal prosecutor in Manhattan said Noorzai’s worldwide narcotics network supported a Taliban regime that made Afghanistan a breeding ground for international terrorism.”įrerichs, 60, had been working on civil engineering projects at the time of his Jan. Noorzai was sentenced in 2009 to life imprisonment after being convicted in federal court in Manhattan, with Justice Department prosecutors accusing him of owning opium fields in Kandahar province and relying on a network of distributors in New York who sold the heroin. ![]() officials subsequently confirmed that Frerichs was the American who was part of the deal. prison and handed over earlier in the day to the Taliban in Kabul as part of the swap. In Afghanistan, Noorzai, who was arrested in 2005 on federal heroin trafficking charges in the U.S., told reporters at a press conference that he had been released from an unspecified U.S. We never gave up hope that he would survive and come home safely to us,” said a statement from the sister, Charlene Cakora. Our family has prayed for this each day of the more than 31 months he has been a hostage. “I am so happy to hear that my brother is safe and on his way home to us. government officials who helped secure her brother’s release. citizen with his family.Ī sister of Frerichs, who is from Lombard, Illinois, thanked U.S. The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, called the decision to grant Noorzai clemency a “difficult decision” but necessary to reunite a U.S. President Joe Biden, who is in the United Kingdom to attend Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral, called Frerichs’s family Monday morning to share the “good news” that his administration was able to secure his release, according to a senior administration official. military departure from Afghanistan, and the collapse of the government there, could make it harder to bring him home and could deflect attention away from his imprisonment. It took place despite concerns from his family and other advocates that the U.S. The exchange is one of the most significant prisoner swaps to take place under the Biden administration, coming five months after a separate deal with Russia that resulted in the release of Marine veteran Trevor Reed. ![]() Negotiations for his release had centered on a deal that would also involve the release of Bashir Noorzai, a notorious drug lord and member of the Taliban who told reporters in Kabul on Monday that he had spent 17 years and six months in U.S. veterans before Afghanistan withdrawal anniversary Mark Frerichs, a Navy veteran who had spent more than a decade in Afghanistan as a civilian contractor, was abducted in January 2020 and was believed to have been held since then by the Taliban-linked Haqqani network. WASHINGTON (AP) - An American contractor held hostage in Afghanistan for more than two years by the Taliban has been released in exchange for a convicted Taliban drug lord jailed in the United States, according to the man’s family and U.S. ![]()
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