Joe Biden traded jailed ‘drug lord’ Bashir Noorzai for naval veteran ‘hostage’ Mark Frerichs
US President Joe Biden on Monday introduced the discharge of Mark Frerichs, a US Army veteran who disappeared in Kabul in 2020 whilst running as a civilian contractor. In the meantime, the Taliban executive of Afghanistan reported the go back of Haji Bashir Noorzai, who spent 17 years in American jail on fees of heroin trafficking.
“Lately, now we have secured the discharge of Mark Frerichs, and he’ll quickly be house,” Biden mentioned in a remark launched by means of the White Space. He thanked “devoted public servants throughout our executive and different spouse governments” for “years of tireless paintings” to protected the discharge of Frerichs, who have been in Taliban captivity since January 2020.
Biden didn’t point out the discharge of Noorzai, handiest that negotiating the discharge of Frerichs “required tough choices, which I didn’t take evenly.”
In the meantime, the Taliban’s performing International Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi introduced that Frerichs and Noorzai had been exchanged at Kabul Global Airport.
“We welcome the discharge of Haji Bashir, an Afghan who spent 17 years in the USA,” Muttaqi instructed newshounds, including that this might “open a brand new bankruptcy within the bilateral family members between the USA and Afghanistan.”
Noorzai used to be lured to the USA, arrested on fees of heroin trafficking, and sentenced to lifestyles in federal jail in 2005. The Taliban had outlawed the cultivation of poppies – from which heroin is extracted – sooner than the USA invasion in 2001, and did so once more after regaining energy ultimate 12 months.
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The USA-backed executive collapsed even sooner than the ultimate American troops had been out of Afghanistan, inflicting a frenzied evacuation from the airport in Kabul that ended on August 31, 2021. Biden has refused to acknowledge the Taliban executive and has seized the belongings of the Afghan central financial institution.
