U.S. Detainees’ Parents Offer Taliban Apology

The parents of two American women imprisoned in Afghanistan on charges of preaching Christianity in the deeply devout Muslim nation apologized “if there is anything wrong that our children have done,” a Taliban official said Thursday.

They also made a passionate appeal to the Taliban’s reclusive leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, to release their children, said Sohail Shaheen, a spokesman at the Afghan Embassy in neighboring Pakistan.

“They gave me a letter they had written to our supreme leader. It was an appeal to see their children on compassionate grounds,” Shaheen said.

Gesturing to a deep brown couch, Shaheen said, “They sat right there and the father of one of the American women said, ‘We apologize if there is anything wrong that our children have done.’ ”

The parents did not make any reference to preaching Christianity, Shaheen said.

The women, along with six other foreign aid workers and 16 Afghan staff members of Shelter Now International, have not been seen since their arrest more than two weeks ago on charges of promoting Christianity.

The aid group denies the charges.

The mother of one imprisoned woman and the father of the other woman submitted their visa applications for Afghanistan on Wednesday, along with the letter to Omar and several letters for their daughters, Shaheen said.

“I have personally forwarded everything to the authorities in Kabul,” he said.

The women, in their mid-20s, have been identified as Dana Curry and Heather Mercer. The six other jailed foreigners have been identified as Germans George Taubmann, Margrit Stebnar, Kati Jelinek and Silke Duerrkopf, and Australians Peter Bunch and Diana Thomas.

Three Western diplomats, who returned to Islamabad from Kabul, the Afghan capital, on Tuesday after a week of trying unsuccessfully to see the jailed aid workers, also submitted fresh visa applications.