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WASHINGTON (AP) — As the Biden administration heralds the forthcoming release of five U.S. citizens detained by Iran, President Joe Biden is also confronting questions about the price being paid to bring them — and other detainees — home. But each time, officials have said bringing home Americans held by foreign adversaries is a core administration priority that necessarily comes at a heavy cost. Increasingly, the Biden White House has appeared willing to pay it. The Biden administration is, of course, hardly unique in prisoner swaps. The Obama administration in a 2016 deal that drew consternation granted clemency to seven Iranians charged in the U.S. in exchange for the release by Iran of four Americans.
Persons: Biden, Joe Biden, Matthew Miller, , Michael Waltz, they’ll, Trump, Donald Trump, who'd, Obama, there's, Siamak Namazi, James W, Danielle Gilbert, , It's, There's, Mark Frerichs, Bashir Noorzai, Nicolás Maduro’s, Antony Blinken, Iran wouldn’t, Ebrahim Raisi, Gilbert Organizations: WASHINGTON, U.S, WNBA, Biden White, Mideast, , Republican National Convention, Foley Foundation, Northwestern University, Justice Department, U.S ., U.S . U.S, NBC Locations: Iran, America, Russia, , U.S, Florida, Iranian, Washington, Venezuela, South Korea, Qatar, Northwestern
Mark Frerichs, 60 years old, is in Qatar and is being offered a range of services to help his recovery, a senior White House official said. Mark Frerichs , a civil engineer and U.S. Navy veteran who was kidnapped in Kabul more than two years ago, was freed Monday in a prisoner exchange between the U.S. government and the Taliban, according to the White House. In exchange for Mr. Frerichs, believed to be the last U.S. citizen still being detained by the Taliban when U.S. forces departed the country last year, Washington handed over Bashir Noorzai , a drug lord who was handed a life sentence in the U.S. in 2009 for trafficking $50 million of heroin.
Navy veteran Mark Frerichs is free after two and a half years of captivity in Afghanistan under a prisoner swap personally approved by President Joe Biden, a senior administration official told NBC News. The Taliban announced the deal overnight and Noorzai appeared at a news conference in Kabul. “This is a painful decision for any president to make,” the administration official said. In recent years, it has become clear that the Taliban wanted Noorzai’s freedom as a condition of releasing the American. “We are working very hard as a government not just to resolve current cases, but also to punish, and by punishing, deter future cases,” the senior administration official said.
Noorzai was detained by the United States on suspicion of smuggling more than $50 million worth of heroin into the United States and Europe. Frerichs is an engineer and U.S. Navy veteran from Lombard, Illinois, who worked in Afghanistan for a decade on development projects. The United States has no official representation in Afghanistan and U.S. government officials elsewhere were not immediately available for comment. The United States has been pushing for the release of Frerichs, including after the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021, as U.S.-led foreign forces were withdrawing. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterReporting by Mohammad Yunus Yawar; Writing by Charlotte Greenfield; Editing by Toby ChopraOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
The Taliban has freed kidnapped US citizen Mark Frerichs after two and a half years' captivity. In return, the US has freed Bashir Noorzai, a Taliban warlord convicted of drug trafficking. In exchange, the US has released Bashir Noorzai. Frerichs was working as a civil engineer in Afghanistan for 10 years "for the benefit of the Afghan people," according to the US State Department. In January, President Joe Biden said: "The Taliban must immediately release Mark before it can expect any consideration of its aspirations for legitimacy.
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