A British couple who were detained in Afghanistan for nearly eight months have said they feared being executed by the Taliban. Peter Reynolds, 80, and his wife Barbie, 76, were reunited with their family in the UK after arriving at Heathrow on Saturday.
Speaking to the Sunday Times, Peter said: 'We began to think that we would never be released, or that we were even being held until we were executed.' He added that they were 'bewildered' as to why they were arrested in February and never given an explanation.
Barbie said the toughest part of the ordeal was 'seeing my 80-year-old husband struggling to get into the back of a police truck with his hands and ankles chained'. The couple, who ran a charitable training programme approved by the Taliban, were arrested on 1 February along with their interpreter, Juya, and an American friend, Faye Hall. Hall was released in March, but Juya's fate remains unknown.
The couple were initially held in a maximum security facility and then in underground cells without daylight before being transferred to the intelligence services in Kabul, according to UN experts. Their daughter Sarah Entwistle had previously expressed concern that without a competent interpreter, their case could not be fairly represented.
Despite their ordeal, Barbie said they hoped to return to Afghanistan, stating: 'We are looking forward to returning to Afghanistan if we can. We are Afghan citizens.' Their son Jonathan said he was 'ecstatic and massively grateful' to those involved in securing their release.
The Taliban foreign ministry spokesperson Abdul Qahar Balkhi said the couple had 'violated the laws of Afghanistan' and were released 'following the judicial process'.
