Fresh terror for brave Afghan interpreters
Fleeing translators who reach Pakistan – en route to safety in Britain – face ‘sinister’ grilling by spies with close links to Taliban
FORMeR Afghan interpreters for the British military fleeing the Taliban are facing ‘sinister’ questioning by Pakistani intelligence officers about their work after slipping across the border.
Translators say officers of the InterService Intelligence, which has close links with the Taliban, have told the UK they must have access to the interpreters before exit visas are issued.
Britain has promised those who qualify for sanctuary and were left behind when the RAF evacuation ended two months ago that they will be helped to come to the UK if they make it to a neighbouring country such as Tajikistan or Pakistan.
Interpreters and others who qualify under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy have so far escaped, mostly with their families, into Pakistan, with some illegally crossing the border.
They are the focus of the ISI, Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency, which was operating in Kabul within 24 hours of the Taliban taking the Afghan capital.
Campaigners for translators called the questioning ‘extremely sinister’, fearing information could be passed back to the Taliban and used in the hunt for those who stood shoulder to shoulder with UK troops in Helmand.
Rafi Hottak, a former supervisor for translators, said: ‘It is both worrying and disturbing that an intelligence service with links to the Taliban is given access to those who risked their lives for Britain. There is no doubt that the type of information they are seeking could be of considerable use to the Taliban in the search for families who are still in hiding and facing the threat of revenge.’
One former senior translator, Sharif Karimi, who was quizzed, said: ‘It was intimidating. I was told it was something that I had to do or I would not have been allowed to leave with my family.’
The 31-year-old, who had been held by Taliban gunmen in a ‘tiny box’ for four days after they marched into Kabul, claimed intelligence officers asked why his captors had not killed him.
‘They wanted to know details of my work, where I had been based, who I had met, of my family and where they lived,’ he said. ‘They wanted to know why I had not been killed by the Taliban.
‘Then they wanted to know about my father, if any of us had worked for the old Afghan government, about my finances and other personal questions. We had to do it but every question you feared there was a trap being set.’
Sharif was speaking for the first time about his kidnap ordeal from a quarantine hotel after being flown to the UK with his wife and four children.
He also told how the Taliban had held him in ‘a small box room that was about one metre wide and one metre high’.
Later he discovered this was where weapons were kept by guards at Finland’s embassy which was abandoned when the Taliban swept into Kabul.
‘I thought I was going to die. They kept shouting that I had been an infidel spy, that I was Sharif, an interpreter for the British, but I denied it. I knew I was talking to save my life,’ he added.
Sharif worked for three years for the UK forces and at one stage looked after a team of 120 British Army interpreters.
He was freed after his family discovered where he was being held and agreed to pay a ransom of over £20,000. Sharif’s story has been highlighted by this newspaper’s award-winning Betrayal of the Brave campaign.
At first he was turned down for sanctuary because he had been dismissed but won approval to relocate in August following the personal intervention of Defence Secretary Ben Wallace.
Last night Sharif said: ‘To be safe in Britain and to begin a new life where my children can go to school will be a dream – one that days ago I feared would never come true because I did not know if I was going to live.
‘I am very grateful to British diplomats and to the Daily Mail campaign for never giving up on me when the future was dark. It has helped to save me and my family.’
Another former interpreter said his ISI questioning had focused on how and where he had slipped into Pakistan. He was also asked who he knew in Pakistan and who had sheltered him.
The interpreter did not have a Pakistan visa but did qualify to come to the UK with his family.
Pakistan officials stress it is their ‘duty’ to question anyone entering the country illegally.
■ A toddler badly injured in a massive bomb blast during the evacuation of Kabul airport has been flown to Britain to be reunited with his mother.
Muhammad Raza, two, was treated in Kabul before being smuggled into Pakistan by relatives. His mother Basbibi, 19, had been ahead in the queue and was able to get on an RAF flight but his father Miraj, 22, was killed.
BETRAYAL OF THE BRAVE