June 06, 2008	Friday	Jamadi-us-Sani 01, 1429

PESHAWAR, June 5: A senior leader of the Hizb-i-Islami, Afghanistan, Dr Ghairat Baheer, freed from the detention centre at the Bagram airbase this week, arrived in Peshawar on Thursday.

Dr Baheer, who is son-in-law of former Afghan prime minister Gulbadin Hikmatyar, reached here on a chartered plane and was received at the airport by senior leaders of the Jamaat-i-Islami and chief of the Al Badar organisation, Bakhat Zameen Khan.

He was arrested in Islamabad in 2002 and was in the custody of US investigators at the Bagram airbase in Afghanistan. Before his release, he was shifted to the ‘notorious’ Pul-i-Charkhi jail near the Afghan capital.

Talking to journalists at the Peshawar airport, Dr Baheer alleged that the US authorities had kept him in illegal detention at the Bagram airbase for almost six years without any justification.

He said he had not been released through any deal or political compromise. “No deal or any understanding,” he said. He said his party wanted a stable, free and independent Afghanistan and was ready for any kind of sacrifices for it.