CNN
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An American citizen who has spent more than two years in detention in Afghanistan was released on Thursday, and is now on his way to the United States, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.
George Glezmann, 66, was released after weeks of negotiations led by Qatari and US mediators.
“Today, after two and a half years of captivity in Afghanistan, Delta Airlines mechanic George Glezmann is on his way to be reunited with his wife, Aleksandra,” Rubio said in a statement. A US official told CNN that no one was released in exchange for Glezmann.
A source with the knowledge of the situation said that negotiations had been going on for weeks and that a breakthrough was made by Qatar during a recent meeting with the Taliban.
US hostage envoy Adam Boehler had also been in close contact with his Qatari counterparts to secure Glezmann’s release, the source said.
Boehler and former US Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad traveled to Kabul on were accompanying Glezmann on the journey back to the US.
Photographs of Boehler and Khalilzad meeting with Taliban officials were released by a spokesperson for Afghanistan’s Foreign Ministry on Thursday.
Khalilzad confirmed Glezmann’s release on X, saying: “Today is a good day. We succeeded in obtaining the release of an American citizen, Georg(e) Glezmann, after two years in detention in Kabul.”
“The Taliban government agreed to free him as a goodwill gesture to (the US president) and the American people. George is on his way home to his family,” he added.
Glezmann’s wife Aleksandra has spoken with him, according to a lawyer for the family.“
They are overjoyed and grateful. And relieved,” Dennis Fitzpatrick told CNN.
Glezmann was detained by the Taliban in December 2022, some 16 months after the group retook control of Afghanistan, and was declared wrongfully detained by the US in September 2023.
He had traveled to Afghanistan for a five-day trip “to explore the cultural landscape and rich history of the country,” according to US Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, who campaigned for Glezmann’s release.
The two lawmakers from Georgia, Glezmann’s home state, said last July that he was held in “a nine-foot by nine-foot cell with other detainees and has been held in solitary confinement and underground for months at a time.”
In the period up to July 2024, Glezmann had not been granted any consular visits by US officials and had “only seven phone calls totaling 54 minutes with his family,” the senators said.
They added that Glezmann received “limited in-person visits with representatives of Qatar.”
The US does not have a diplomatic presence in Afghanistan, having closed its embassy there after the Taliban takeover in August 2022. Instead, Qatar represents the US in Afghanistan, acting as its “protective power.”
Rubio said on Thursday that Qatar has “consistently proven to be a reliable partner and trusted mediator, facilitating complex negotiations.”
“We extend our deepest appreciation to the State of Qatar,” whose “diplomatic efforts were instrumental in securing George’s release,” he said.
Glezmann is the third US citizen to be freed from Afghanistan this year, after Ryan Corbett and William McKenty were released in a prisoner exchange in January.
The deal to release Corbett and McKenty was struck in the last hours of former President Joe Biden’s time in office after the Taliban agreed to swap them for Khan Mohammed, a Taliban member who was serving a life sentence for narco-terrorism in a US prison.
That agreement was also facilitated by Qatar, which hosted several rounds of US negotiations with the Taliban and also provided logistical support to the operations to get the pair out of Kabul, according to multiple people familiar with the details of the swap.
US officials had wanted Glezmann and another American held in Afghanistan, Mahmoud Habibi, to be part of the deal, and expressed disappointment at the time that the two weren’t handed over in January. However, they said they couldn’t turn down the offer for at least Corbett and McKenty.
The Taliban has never acknowledged holding Habibi but the US still considers him a hostage.
Ahmad Habibi, one of Mahmood Habibi’s brothers, said in a statement that the family was “grateful that George is about to be reunited with his family.”
“We are also grateful that Special Envoy Boehler and Ambassador Khalilzad confronted the Taliban about their refusal to admit they are holding my brother. We are confident that the Trump Administration will hold firm that my brother needs to be released for relations with the US to move forward,” he said, adding that the family have reason to be confident that Habibi was alive and in Taliban custody, despite Taliban’s denials.
Glezmann’s wife Aleksandra Glezmann said last July that her husband’s health was failing. In a letter to Biden, she wrote that he had a benign tumor on one side of his face, was losing vision in one eye and had developed sores and ulcers on his body.
CNN’s Betsy Klein and Jennifer Hansler contributed reporting.