The Taliban government announced on Friday that it had freed an elderly British couple detained in Afghanistan for nearly eight months.
Peter Reynolds, 80, and his wife Barbara, 76, were arrested in February. Their family had repeatedly raised concerns about their deteriorating health.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi confirmed the release on social media, saying the pair had “violated the laws of Afghanistan” but were freed “following the judicial process”.
He stressed that the government did not treat the cases of foreign citizens “from a political or transactional angle”.
The couple were handed over to the UK’s special representative Richard Lindsay. A Qatari official, speaking anonymously, revealed that their release followed “months of mediation led by Qatar” in close coordination with the British government.
Peter and Barbara Reynolds, who married in Kabul in 1970, spent nearly 20 years in Afghanistan running educational programmes and had acquired Afghan citizenship. Taliban officials have not disclosed the reasons behind their arrest in Bamiyan province earlier this year.