Washington– president Joe Biden On Sunday, he spoke with relatives of three Americans the U.S. government is looking to repatriate from Afghanistan, but it was not clear from the call whether the repatriation deal now on the table could be completed before he leaves office next week.
Biden’s call with family members Ryan CorbettThe film, written by George Glezman and Mahmoud Habibi, takes place in the final days of his administration as officials try to negotiate a deal that could bring them home in exchange for Mohamed Rahim, one of the remaining detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
Corbett, who was living in Afghanistan with his family at the time The collapse of the US-backed government in 2021, The Taliban kidnapped him in August 2022 while he was on a business trip, and Taliban intelligence services kidnapped Glezman, an aviation mechanic from Atlanta, in December 2022 while he was traveling across the country.
Officials believe the Taliban are still holding the two men as well as Habibie, an Afghan-American businessman who worked as a contractor for a Kabul-based telecommunications company and also disappeared in 2022. The FBI said Habibie and his driver were kidnapped along with them. 29 other employees of the company were released, except for Habibi and one other person.
The Taliban denied having Habibie, complicating talks with the US government.
In the phone call on Sunday, Biden told the families that his administration would not trade Rahim, who has been held at Guantanamo since 2008, unless the Taliban released Habibie, according to a statement from Ahmed Habibie, Habibie’s brother.
“President Biden was very clear when he told us that he would not trade Rahim if the Taliban did not let my brother go,” the statement said. “He said he wouldn’t leave him behind. My family is so grateful to have him stand by my brother.”
Ryan Fayhey, an attorney representing Corbett’s relatives, said the family was grateful to Biden for the call but also implored him to act on the deal.
“The agreement is now on the table and the decision to accept it – although incomplete – rests exclusively with the president,” Faye said in a statement. He added: “Difficult decisions make great presidents, and we hope and believe that President Biden will not allow perfect to be the enemy of good when American lives are at stake.”
If an agreement is not reached before January 20, it will fall to the incoming Trump administration to resume negotiations, although it is unclear whether officials will take a different approach when it comes to releasing a Guantanamo detainee deemed dangerous by the US government.
Only 15 men remain at Guantanamo, down from the peak of about 800 under the previous president. George W. Bush.
Rahim is one of three remaining detainees who have never been charged, but were never deemed safe for the United States to consider transferring them to other countries, as it did with hundreds of other Muslim detainees who were brought to Guantanamo but never charged.
The United States described Rahim as a direct advisor, co-worker, and activist Osama bin Laden and other senior al-Qaeda figures, and poses a continuing threat to US national security, even though no charges were ever brought against him or any evidence officially released against Rahim during the seventeen years he spent at Guantanamo.
Successive US administrations have kept Rahim secret to a remarkable degree, even for military-run detention at Guantanamo.
His lawyer, James Connell, recently told the UN Human Rights Committee that the United States is “systematically silencing Rahim.” Connell claimed before the same committee that a US official told him that “every word Rahim says on any subject is classified as classified.” “For national security.”
Biden administration in September 2022 A convicted drug lord is exchanged for the Taliban Imprisoned in the United States is an American civilian contractor who was held by the Taliban for more than two years.
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Associated Press writer Ellen Knickmeier in Washington contributed to this report.