2024-02-25 15:46:04
The Austrian government, through Qatar’s mediation, has secured the release of the Austrian Herbert F. from Afghan custody. As the Federal Chancellery and the Foreign Ministry announced on Sunday followingnoon, the 84-year-old has already landed in the Qatari capital Doha. He had been in the power of the extremist Taliban since May 2023. An FPÖ delegation led by ex-EU MP Andreas Mölzer tried to have him released last year.
It was only at the beginning of February that the FPÖ accused the Foreign Ministry of doing too little to secure the man’s release. At a joint press conference with the 84-year-old’s daughter, Liberal MP Martin Graf spoke of a “state failure”. Austria should comply with the Taliban’s demands to close the Afghan embassy in Vienna, demanded Graf. F. is a well-known figure in the right-wing extremist scene in Austria. In 1967 he was a founding member of the National Democratic Party (NDP), which was banned in 1988. According to the Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance (DÖW) from 2015, F. continued to be active in the right-wing extremist scene.
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