14 DAY TRIAL // Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, the last American soldier held captive by the Afghan Taliban, was released on May 31, 2014, nearly five years after his capture by insurgents, US officials have announced.
According to The Guardian, the Taliban agreed to release the 28-year-old soldier after the US government accepted to free five Afghan detainees from the Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba and transfer them to Qatari custody for at least one year.
Bergdahl is believed to have been in the captivity of the Taliban-aligned Haqqani network in Afghanistan from June, 30, 2009, when he disappeared from his platoon in Afghanistan, until his release on Saturday. The army sergeant has not yet arrived home in Idaho, as he has been taken to a US military base in Germany for treatment.
In a statement from the Rose Garden at the White House with the soldier's parents, Barack Obama said, “While Bowe was gone, he was never forgotten. The United States of America does not ever leave our men and women in uniform behind.”
US officials said the release was brokered by the American, Qatar and Afghanistan governments with the Taliban, and assured citizens that they had taken measures to protect national security.
“The United States has coordinated closely with Qatar to ensure that security measures are in place and the national security of the United States will not be compromised,” defense secretary Chuck Hagel said, according to the Guardian.
Bergdahl's release took place in eastern Afghanistan, near the Pakistani border, on Saturday morning. He was handed over to a US special forces team and the exchange was described as a “peaceful handover.”
Although the American legislation states that the President must inform Congress at least 30 days in advance of any transfers at Guantanamo Bay, no notice was given in this prisoner swap deal with the Taliban. This has sparked a lot of criticism towards the Obama administration, with the Republicans warning that the deal could embolden terrorists to take more American hostages in hopes of extracting ransom.
Meanwhile, the circumstances surrounding Bergdahl's capture remain unclear. Some sources say he willingly walked away from his base after his shift, raising the question of whether he could be charged with desertion. Others claim he was grabbed from a latrine, and the version offered by Bergdahl himself in a video is that he was captured when he fell behind on a patrol.
Bergdahl’s release comes just after Obama announced plans to pull nearly all American forces out of Afghanistan by the end of 2016.