The United States Government has released a Taliban member, Khan Mohammad, in exchange for two U.S. citizens held in Afghanistan.
This development was confirmed by Afghanistan authorities in Kabul on Tuesday.
Mohammad was arrested in eastern Afghanistan in 2006 and extradited to the U.S a year later. He was eventually convicted by an American court on charges of drug smuggling and terrorism.
His sentence was pronounced in 2008 by a U.S. court, which was the first conviction on narco-terrorism charges, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Mohammad told local media organisation Hurriyat in a video interview on Tuesday that he had left prison on Jan. 16.
“Thanks to the support and assistance of the Islamic Emirate and, by God’s grace, I was freed,” Reuters quoted him as saying.
Reuters reports that the prisoner exchange was the result of “long and productive” negotiations between Afghan and American authorities.
Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban administration, confirmed that two Americans had been released, but declined to identify them.
One of the Americans released was named Ryan Corbett, according to a statement on a site run by his family. Corbett had been in Taliban detention since 2022, the family site said.
“We are overwhelmed with joy that Ryan is on his way home,” the family said on the site.
CNN and the New York Times reported on Sunday that the other American released was William McKenty.
“The Islamic Emirate views the actions of the United States positively when they contribute to normalizing and expanding relations between the two countries,” Afghanistan’s foreign ministry statement said.
DOJ website quoted court records saying Mohammad was “a violent jihadist and narcotics trafficker” who “sought to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan using rockets”.
Corbett’s family said he ran a non-government organization called Bloom Afghanistan, which was a social enterprise focused on strengthening Afghanistan’s private sector.
He was in Afghanistan to renew his business visa in 2022 when he was detained by the Taliban.
McKenty’s family had asked the U.S. government to keep his details private, according to the New York Times.
The prisoner exchange was years in the making and finally struck in the very last hours of Democratic former President Joe Biden’s time in office before Republican President Donald Trump took over on Monday, CNN reported.
“It’s notable that the Taliban waited for Trump,” said Graeme Smith, senior analyst at International Crisis Group.
“Of course, it was negotiated by the Biden administration, and I think the outgoing administration laid the groundwork for further potential deals,” he said, referring to the talks over other Americans detained in Afghanistan as well as Muhammad Rahim al-Afghani, a high-profile prisoner held in Guantanamo Bay.