Taliban release detained elderly British couple

AFP | London

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An elderly British couple detained in Afghanistan for almost eight months were released yesterday, the Taliban authorities said, after pressure built to free the pair due to fears over their health.

Taliban officials have refused to detail why Peter Reynolds, 80, and his wife Barbara, 76, were arrested in February as they were returning to their home.

“We’ve been treated very well. We’re looking forward to seeing our children,” said Barbara, in a red headscarf, standing next to her bearded husband, near a plane on the tarmac of Kabul airport. “We are looking forward to returning to Afghanistan if we can. We are Afghan citizens,” she added, after Qatar-facilitated negotiations for their release.

The couple were married in Kabul in 1970, and have spent almost two decades living in Afghanistan running educational programmes for women and children. They also became official Afghan citizens.

When the Taliban returned to power in 2021, the couple remained in Afghanistan against the advice of the British embassy.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi in a statement posted on social media said the couple were handed over to the UK’s special representative to the country Richard Lindsay.

“Two British nationals named Peter and Barbara Reynolds, who had violated the laws of Afghanistan, were released from custody today following the judicial process,” Balkhi added. Images of the couple standing together with Lindsay at Kabul airport before their departure to the Qatari capital Doha were broadcast on Sky News. “They are very relieved to be to be going home,” Lindsay told the broadcaster.

The couple were first held in a maximum security facility, “then in underground cells, without daylight, before being transferred” to the intelligence services in Kabul, according to UN experts.