The Afghan foreign minister and the Iranian ambassador to Kabul said Sunday that a prisoner exchange program has been finalized between the two countries based on an agreement signed few years ago.
According to the Afghan-Iran prisoner agreement, prisoners swapped will serve out their sentences in prisons in their own countries.
In the first phase of this exchange, 21 Iranian prisoners who were sentenced for various crimes were transferred to Iran on Saturday.
The Afghan prisoners included in the swap, which are believed to number more than 200, will be returned to their home country within the next ten days.
The number of Iranian prisoners currently in Afghan prisons is not known, but officials have said they all committed crimes.
An Iranian prisoner said: “I was sentenced here to prison. Now I am happy that they transfer us to Iran.”
These prisoners have been transferred based on an agreement made between the two countries which will see the prisoners serve out the rest of their sentences in their own countries.
Aziz Ahmad, a guard at a detention center said: “These prisoners are being transferred based on an agreement that was signed many years ago. This process will continue between the two countries.”
Mohammad Reza Bahrami, Iranian ambassador to Kabul said that the process of exchanging prisoners was restarted after meetings between members of a prisoner-transfer commission.
“These prisoners will be transferred based on the agreement, but some conditions will be applied to the prisoners. First, they have to be sentenced by the court, second they themselves need to agree to be transferred, and the third condition is that their prison time should not exceed six months,” the ambassador added.
Ahmad Shekib Mustaghni, spokesman for the ministry of foreign said: “Out of 23 prisoners 21 were transferred today and the two remaining will be transferred by the end of the week.”
While thousands of Afghan citizens are in Iranian prisons for various crimes, especially that of drug smuggling, Iranian officials would not provide the exact number. http://www.tolonews.com/en/afghanistan/26985-afghanistan-iran-exchange-prisoners
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