{"id":153409,"date":"2025-09-22T16:17:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T16:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/153409\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T16:17:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T16:17:08","slug":"british-couple-held-by-taliban-for-months-feared-they-would-be-executed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/153409\/","title":{"rendered":"British couple held by Taliban for months feared they would be executed"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the prisons Peter and Barbie were held in was Pul-e-Charkhi, a notorious maximum security prison outside Kabul that is home to some of the most dangerous criminals<\/a>. <\/p>\n

At one point they were held in basement cells with no windows for two months. For the final weeks of their detention they were moved above ground, where they say they had access to better food and were treated with kindness.<\/p>\n

Peter and Barbie were taken to court around four times, each time there was no charge.<\/p>\n

“When I was taken to court, I had my ankles and hands cuffed together with murderers and rapists,” Peter said via email.<\/p>\n

They also say they are “mystified” by their detention, with Mr Reynolds adding that they were both mostly treated with respect but felt “a huge powerlessness”.<\/p>\n

He adds: “We were told we were guests. However, when I was taken to court, I had my ankles and hands cuffed together with murderers and rapists.”<\/p>\n

For his wife Barbara, the toughest time of her captivity was “seeing my 80-year old husband struggling to get into the back of a police truck with his hands and ankles chained.”<\/p>\n

“The worst moment was being led away and being separated as a couple after 55 years of marriage to my best friend,” Mr Reynolds recalls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the prisons Peter and Barbie were held in was Pul-e-Charkhi, a notorious maximum security prison outside…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153410,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-153409","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}