KABUL, 27 October 2005 — Fourteen Taleban prisoners were extradited from Pakistan to Afghanistan yesterday, including two leaders of the hard-line militia removed from government four years ago, the president’s office said.

The prisoners also included the ousted militia’s one-time spokesman, Abdul Latif Hakimi, who was captured in Pakistan this month, presidential spokesman Khaleeq Ahmad told AFP.

“Fourteen Taleban prisoners were handed to Afghanistan and Hakimi is included in the 14,” Ahmad said. “They include two Taleban leaders and regular Taleban.” He said he did not have other details about the prisoners. President Hamid Karzai demanded the extradition of Hakimi immediately after Pakistan announced in early October it had captured him in its southwestern province of Baluchistan, which shares a long and rugged border with Afghanistan.

According to Afghanistan’s Bakhtar News Agency, Pakistani officials handed over Hakimi and his colleagues in Pakistan and they were flown to Kabul in a military aircraft. Hakimi has contacted reporters in Afghanistan frequently claiming responsibility for insurgent attacks on US and Afghan troops and was arrested in early October on Pakistani soil.

The hand-over took place two days after Karzai visited Pakistan to express his condolences to the Pakistani government and relatives of victims of the devastating earthquake earlier this month.

Meanwhile, Afghan groups based inside and outside the country joined yesterday in calls for Karzai to secure the release of an editor jailed after clerics accused him of questioning Islamic law.

The arrest and jailing of Ali Mohaqiq Nasab, editor of monthly magazine Haqoq-e-Zan (Women’s Rights), cast doubt on the country’s commitment to freedom of speech, more than 150 editors, writers and Afghan groups said in a letter to the president.