KABUL (SW): President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani rejected reports about prison swap in return for the release of 19 out of 31 abducted men on Monday.
Addressing the press at the Presidential Palace, Ghani said security issues needed wisdom and patients to be resolved.
“Number one, we have paid no money in return for these men. Number two, no one with criminal record in the courts of Afghanistan has been freed from prison for this”, he said categorically.
The President said women and children belonging to foreign (Chechen, Uzbek) terrorists, who died in Badakshan in winter, were kept in the state guest houses for a while. Though, he did not said these women and children were swapped for the release of abducted men but that is what has been reported from Ghazni province where the swap took place.
Earlier on Monday, authorities in Ghazni province confirmed the release of 19 out of a total of 31 men who were abducted over two months ago by the militants from a busy highway.
The men belonged to Shia Hazara community that visits Iran regularly for religious trips. The abducted men were taken away while returning from one such trip on February 23rd this year. They were on their way to the central province of Ghazni and the capital Kabul from neighboring Iran when armed men stopped their bus in the southern Zabul province.
ENDS
