Afghanistan Times
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AT News Report-KABUL: The Afghan official has informed that over 12,000 Afghan nationals are imprisoned in different jails in Pakistan and Iran—the two neighboring countries.
The Minister of Refugee and Repatriation said that over 7,000 Afghan nationals are currently languishing in Pakistani jails—while 5,124 more in Iranian prisons.
“Exact numbers of Afghans in Pakistani jails is not clear yet—but currently there are 7,000 Afghans in lockup,” minister Sayed Hussain Alemi Balkhi said.
However, recently more than 600 Afghan prisoners have been transferred to Afghanistan from Iran. They detainees would be treated based on the law.
“Defending the rights of Afghans abroad, we have signed a prisoner exchange agreement with Iran to transfer all Afghan prisoners from Iran to Afghanistan in multiple phases,” President Ashraf Ghani said in a Twitter post on Wednesday.
The handover of the Afghan inmates to the Afghan officials is based on an agreement signed to exchange prisoners with Iran.
At the same time some politicians believe that the government should establish a special court to look after cases of Afghan prisoners after transformation.
“A special court should be formed so it could assess cases of the prisoners and then take a decision,” Abdulhadi Arghandiwal, head of a Hezb-e-Islami political party said.
But so far no agreement signed with Pakistan to facilitate exchange of Afghans prisoners.
