George Glezmann, a 66-year-old man who went to Afghanistan in 2022 and was detained there by the Taliban has been released Thursday and is now on his way to the United States, reports said. CNN said the release came after weeks of negotiations led by Qataru and US mediators. US ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad confirmed Glezmann’s release on X saying: “Today is a good day. We succeeded in obtaining the release of an American citizen, Georg(e) Glezmann, after two years in detention in Kabul.”
“The Taliban government agreed to free him as a goodwill gesture to (the US president) and the American people. George is on his way home to his family,” he added.
“George Glezmann is free. George was wrongfully detained in Afghanistan for two and a half years, but now he’s on his way to be reunited with his wife Aleksandra. Welcome home, George!” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.
“We extend our deepest appreciation to the State of Qatar, whose steadfast commitment and diplomatic efforts were instrumental in securing George’s release. Qatar has consistently proven to be a reliable partner and trusted mediator, facilitating complex negotiations,” the press statement of Rubio said.
Who is George Glezmann? What happened to him?
Glezmann traveled to Afghanistan for a five-day trip to “explode the cultural landscape and rich history of the country”. US said he was wrongfully detained by the Taliban and was kept in “a nine-foot by nine-foot cell with other detainees and has been held in solitary confinement and underground for months at a time.”
Until July 2024, Glezmann was not granted any consular visits by US officials and had only seven phone calls of 54 minutes in total with his family.
Glezmann is the third US citizen to be freed from Afghanistan this year, after Ryan Corbett and William McKenty were released in a prisoner exchange in January.
Having closed its embassy in Afghanistan after Taliban takeover in 2022, the US does not have any diplomatic presence in the country and is represented by Qatar.
Glezmann’s wife Aleksandra Glezmann said last July that her husband’s health was failing. In a letter to then-president Joe Biden, she wrote that he had a benign tumor on one side of his face, was losing vision in one eye and had developed sores and ulcers on his body, CNN reported.
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