US Contractor Released by Taliban After Swap for Trafficker

Navy veteran and US contractor Mark Frerichs is free after 2 1/2 years of captivity in Afghanistan under a prisoner swap personally approved by President Joe Biden, senior administration officials said Monday.

Biden agreed to commute the sentence of Bashir Noorzai, an Afghan who was convicted in 2008 of running a major heroin-smuggling operation. He had been in US custody for 17 years.

“Bringing the negotiations that led to Mark’s freedom to a successful resolution required difficult decisions, which I did not take lightly,” Biden said in a statement, adding that his administration “continues to prioritize the safe return of all Americans who are held hostage or wrongfully detained abroad” in Myanmar, Haiti, Russia, Venezuela, and elsewhere.

The president said he spoke Monday with Frerichs’s sister to share the news.

Frerichs’s release comes as US officials work to secure freedom for US basketball star Brittney Griner and former US Marine Paul Whelan from Russian custody. Biden met with their families on Friday.

The US government offered to exchange Griner and Whelan for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer known as the “merchant of death” who in 2012 was sentenced to 25 years in prison, and a second Russian also held in a US jail, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Russia hasn’t accepted the offer and on Monday blamed the US for the deadlock.

“I want the families of Americans who are being arbitrarily detained or held hostage anywhere in the world to know that our commitment to them, to bringing their loved ones home, is resolute,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday in remarks in New York at a program related to this week’s United Nations General Assembly meeting.

Blinken thanked Qatar for support that he said was “was key in securing” the release of Frerichs. The Taliban announced the deal overnight, and Noorzai appeared at a news conference in Kabul, NBC reported.

The president decided in June to grant Noorzai clemency, a senior administration official said Monday. Following the July air strike that killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, the US government warned the Taliban there would be consequences if Frerichs was harmed, the official said.

The US has assessed that Noorzai’s release doesn’t present a threat to Americans and won’t fundamentally alter the contours of the drug trade in Afghanistan, the official said.

The senior administration official said Monday that Frerichs appeared to be in stable health following an initial assessment.

In January, Biden said the Taliban would have to release Frerichs to have any legitimacy.

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