Taliban release U.S. engineer in prisoner swap

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.

Navy veteran Mark Frerichs is free after 2 1/2 years of captivity in Afghanistan under a prisoner swap personally approved by President Joe Biden, a senior administration official told NBC News on Monday.

After months of negotiations with the Taliban, Biden agreed to commute the sentence of an Afghan drug lord, Bashir Noorzai, who spent 17 years in U.S. custody and was convicted in 2008 of running a major operation to smuggle heroin into New York City.

The Taliban announced the deal overnight and Noorzai appeared at a news conference in Kabul, the Afghan capital.

“This is a painful decision for any president to make,” the administration official said. “There is just no symmetry at all between Mark, who did absolutely nothing wrong … and Noorzai, who had all the benefits of the U.S. legal system.”

Early Monday, Biden called Frerichs’ sister, Charlene Cakora, with the news, the official said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/taliban-release-us-engineer-prisoner-swap-rcna48265

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