(21 Jan 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
++CLIENTS NOTE: PLEASE SEE UPDATED SCRIPT WITH CORRECTED LOCATION SENT AT 1945GMT++
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jalalabad, Afghanistan – 21 January 2025
1. Afghan Taliban officials and relatives of Khan Mohammed standing in line awaiting his arrival
2. Khan Mohammed hugging relatives
3. SOUNDBITE (Pashto) Khan Mohammed, prisoner released in swap:
“I spent seven months in Bagram prison, after that I was moved to Washington DC, spent some time there, I think 18 months, I don’t remember exactly. After that I was shifted to California.”
4. Relatives standing
5. SOUNDBITE (Pashto) Khan Mohammed, prisoner released in swap:
“I was arrested for two crimes, one I was accused of selling drugs and giving money to the Taliban Islamic state, and secondly, I was blamed for planning to attack one air base where American forces were based, and to kill them, so these were two cases against me.”
6. Relatives
7. SOUNDBITE (Pashto) Rafiullah (no last name given), son of Khan Mohammed:
“My father was innocently arrested, no crime has been proven against him, he spent 20 years in prison innocently. Our demand is to know why our father was kept in jail for so long.”
8. Vehicle with tinted windows leaving carrying Mohammed
STORYLINE:
A prisoner swap between the United States and Afghanistan’s Taliban freed two Americans in exchange for a Taliban figure imprisoned for life in California on drug trafficking and terrorism charges, officials said Tuesday.
The Taliban’s Foreign Ministry in Kabul said the two US citizens had been exchanged for Khan Mohammed, who was sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment in 2008.
Mohammed, 55, was a prisoner in California after his 2008 conviction.
The Bureau of Prisons early Tuesday listed Mohammed as not being in their custody.
Hafiz Zia Ahmad Takal, a Taliban Foreign Ministry deputy spokesperson, said Mohammed had arrived in Afghanistan and was with his family.
Video showed him being welcomed back in his home province of Nangarhar, in the country’s east, with multicolored garlands.
Mohammed said he had spent time behind bars in Bagram and also Washington, DC.
He was detained on the battlefield in Nangarhar and later taken to the US.
A federal jury convicted him on charges of securing heroin and opium that he knew were bound for the United States and, in doing so, assisting terrorism activity.
Biden, who oversaw the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, on Monday handed power to President Donald Trump.
The Taliban praised the swap as a step toward the “normalization” of ties between the US and Afghanistan, but that likely remains a tall order as most countries in the world still don’t recognize their rule and another two Americans are believed held.
The Trump White House cheered the release and thanked Qatar for its assistance facilitating the deal, but also pressed the Taliban to free other Americans held in Afghanistan.
AP Video shot by Siddiqullah Alizai
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