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EXCLUSIVE: A woman desperate to bring her husband home after two and a half years of wrongful detention in Afghanistan has flown to Mar-a-Lago in Florida to plead President-elect Trump to take up his case.
Ryan Corbett was captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan in August 2022 just as the US was pulling out of the country, and Anna Corbett says she has been trying to meet with the Biden administration ever since.
This week, Anna saw a glimmer of hope when it was reported that the Biden administration has been negotiating with the Taliban to exchange three US citizens detained in Afghanistan in exchange for a Guantánamo Bay prisoner he was allegedly a close associate of Usama bin Laden.
But that deal seems to have stalled. A senior Taliban official told The Guardian that the Taliban would prefer to wait to negotiate with the incoming Trump administration, dashing the hopes of the Corbett family.
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“I’m absolutely desperate to fight for my family,” Anna Corbett told Fox News Digital Friday during a layover on her last-minute flight to Mar-a-Lago.
She’s not sure if the latest attempt will work. Trump’s team has yet to arrange a meeting.
The Corbett family before the arrest of Ryan Corbett in 2022 in Afghanistan. (Anna Corbett)
“Wouldn’t it be amazing if I had a meeting in one day, when, for 883 days, I tried to have a meeting with President Biden and I didn’t have time?” she said
Trump told Fox News’ Peter Doocy he would consider a prisoner swap, but sounded skeptical.
“I haven’t looked at it,” Trump said Thursday. “I haven’t been in favor of the trade, but I’ll take a look tomorrow. We’ll announce something tomorrow.”
The talks, which have been ongoing since at least July 2024, involve the exchange of an alleged al Qaeda aide, Muhammad Rahim al Afghani, for US citizens Ryan Corbett, George Glezmann and Mahmoud Habibi, who were arrested in Afghanistan in 2022.
The Corbett family has traveled to Washington, DC dozens of times to meet with officials to bring Ryan Corbett home. (Anna Corbett)
Some Republicans in Congress privately expressed national security concerns about Rahim’s return to the Taliban and questioned whether the negotiations had resulted in a bad deal.
“Ryan is an amazing person and has done nothing wrong, and our family desperately needs him,” said Anna Corbett, imploring the US government to accept the deal. “He’s a patriot. He was just trying to help the Afghan people, and that’s a decision the president has to make. And we’re desperate for Ryan to come home alive as soon as possible.”
Glezmann and Ryan Corbett have been declared by the Department of State as unjustly detained, and the Taliban deny having Habibi.
Anna Corbett said she last spoke to her husband on Christmas Day for about 15 minutes.
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“She was clearly trying very hard to be in a good mood at Christmas for the kids and me,” she said. “But it was a difficult call, obviously, because this has been going on for so long.
“He asked me where things were, if there was any progress. And there was really nothing I could share with him.”
Anna Corbett at the airport on her way to Mar-a-Lago in Florida on Friday. (Anna Corbett)
In 2024, two released American detainees revealed that Ryan Corbett was severely malnourished, suffering blackouts and fainting spells, and was being held in a basement cell with almost no sunlight or exercise.
Anna Corbett said her husband has since gained some weight, but still experiences constant headaches and ringing in his ears.
Ryan Corbett was kidnapped on August 10, 2022, after returning to Afghanistan, where he and his family had lived during the collapse of the US-backed government a year earlier.
He arrived in Afghanistan on a visa valid for 12 months to pay and train staff as part of a business venture he ran with the aim of promoting Afghanistan’s private sector through consulting and lending services.
Despite the arrests, the US remains the the largest financial support of Afghanistanhaving offered the nation about $3 billion since the 2021 withdrawal.
The Taliban have long demanded the release of Rahim, who has been held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba since 2008 because the Pentagon believes he was a close associate of bin Laden.
In November 2023, the Guantánamo prison review board cited Rahim’s work for members of Al Qaeda and his involvement in attacks against US and allied forces in Afghanistan as grounds for keeping him in prison.
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Biden has long intended to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. On Monday, he announced the transfer of 11 Yemeni detainees, including two former bin Laden bodyguards, from Guantanamo to Oman, which he has agreed to help resettle.
Greg Norman of Fox News and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
