Family of murder victim oppose Afghan prisoner release

The family of a French woman murdered in Afghanistan said yesterday they could not accept the release of her killers as Kabul and the Taliban discuss freeing 400 prisoners as part of a peace deal.

Bettina Goislard was working for the UN’s refugee agency when she was killed in 2003 in Ghazni, south of Kabul, by two men who are on the list of prisoners that the Taliban wants the government to release.

“Such a decision to free [them] made on the basis of horse-trading would be, to us, her family, inconceivable,” Goislard’s parents, brother and sister said.

“It would be a denial of the judicial process which saw her killers, arrested in the act and whose guilt has never been in doubt, convicted in an Afghan court,” they said.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani convened a loya jirga, a traditional gathering of thousands of prominent citizens, on Friday to decide whether to release about 400 Taliban prisoners, including many involved in attacks that killed scores of Afghans and foreigners.

The prisoners’ fate is a crucial hurdle to the start of direct peace talks between the insurgents and the Afghan government as part of a US-Taliban peace deal.

The Afghan government has already released almost 5,000 Taliban inmates but has baulked at freeing the final prisoners demanded by the Taliban. As well as Goislard’s two killers, there are about 150 others who have been sentenced to death for serious crimes, according to the list seen by Agence France-Presse.

Five of the men, for example, played a role in the 2018 attack on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul that killed 40 people, including 14 foreigners.

Goislard’s family said they could never accept a decision to release the prisoners “which would not show respect to their victims or their relatives and we hope the loya jirga will carefully consider the case of those who have carried out such crimes and not release them”.

The loya jirga was expected to announce a decision today. Its findings are not legally binding but carry significant political weight.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called for the release of the detainees, promising help if Afghanistan moved forward on peace efforts.

“We acknowledge that the release of these prisoners is unpopular,” Mr Pompeo said before the first session started. “But this difficult action will lead to an important result long sought by Afghans and Afghanistan’s friends: reduction of violence and direct talks resulting in a peace agreement and an end to the war.”

A survey circulated at the loya jirga on Friday put the choice bluntly: decide to free the Taliban prisoners and talks could begin tomorrow, or refuse and the war would continue. If the Taliban are freed, direct talks could be followed by a lasting ceasefire.

If successful, the US-Taliban deal would lead to the departure of foreign troops who have been in Afghanistan since the 2001 US-led invasion that toppled the Taliban regime.

Among those awaiting release as part of a peace deal are two men who are in jail for killing UN worker Bettina Goislard