After decades in American custody, a top Taliban official named Haji Bashir Noorzai was freed and arrived in Kabul on Monday, according to a Taliban spokesperson.
He was reportedly one of the final Afghans detained at Guantanamo Bay, according to accounts in the Afghan official media.
According to a Tweet from Taliban spokesman Mohammad Naeem, who is stationed in Doha, “Honorable Haji Bashir was released after 20 years in prison and arrived in Kabul today.”
An Afghan tribal leader named Bashir Noorzai was detained in 2005 and accused of importing heroin worth more than $50 million into the country.
Later, Noorzai’s attorney refuted the allegations that his client was a drug dealer and said the charges should be dropped since US government agents had deceived him into thinking he wouldn’t be detained.
