Taliban Release Hundreds of Prisoners from Helmand Prison on Eid al-Fitr, Officials Say

Taliban prison officials in Helmand province announced the release of 596 prisoners from the central prison on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, with sentence reductions applied to 162 or 163 others.

Maulvi Baheddin Atef, head of Helmand prisons, told Bakhtar News Agency that the releases were based on a special decree from Amir al-Mu'minin. Both Afghanistan International and Bakhtar News reported the figure of 596 releases in Helmand, with minor variance in the number of sentence reductions.

Separately, the Taliban's media office in Nangarhar province said 377 prisoners were released from the central prison there, including 22 women and 26 children, according to Mawlawi Sohail Saeed, head of prisons in the province. Sentence reductions were also granted to 351 others, based on a ruling from the Taliban's Supreme Court, Afghanistan International reported.

In Kandahar, Rafiullah Sahibzada, spokesman for the prison directorate, said 201 prisoners were released and sentence reductions applied to 393 others, Bakhtar News reported. Sheikh Maulvi Mohammad Mohammadi, head of the Kandahar Appellate Court, and Maulvi Mohibullah Garmasiri, head of Kandahar Prison, congratulated the released prisoners and urged them to follow Islamic Sharia principles, avoid crimes and use vocational skills to support their families.

Taliban announcements did not specify the crimes for which the prisoners were convicted or the length of their sentences.