KABUL (SW) – Mir Rehmani Rehmani, speaker of the Wolesi Jirga (lower house), said on Saturday the captive foreign teachers in the Taliban custody might not be alive.
He said this during a parliament session on the security situation in the country. Speaker Rehmani blamed the Taliban for not obeying terms of the prison swap with the two captive American University of Afghanistan professors.
Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, told Voice of America radio on Friday that the deal was ‘suspended for now and it was up to US officials to explain why they reneged on their promise’. He said the professors were still in Taliban custody and that the Taliban prisoners had never been released contrary to some reports on 12 November that they had already left for Qatar.
62-year-old American Kevin King and 50-year-old Australian Tim Weeks have been in the militants’ captivity for over three year now.
ENDS
