Brittney Griner was the most prominent American wrongfully detained abroad and the biggest success story for the Biden administration's efforts to secure their freedom in 2022, but not the only one.
Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens leads the State Department in its work to get Americans the government deems wrongfully detained back. U.S. officials don't say how many Americans fit that description, though nonprofit groups say the number is about 60 people. Carstens has overseen the return of more than a dozen this year alone, most recently the two-time Olympic basketball player who had been detained in Russia for 10 months and returned home.
Meeting an American regaining their freedom is “humbling” for Carstens, he said during an interview on CNN, adding, “I’m very grateful that President Biden allows me a chance to do this job. It’s also a painful job. When you get a chance to shake someone’s hand, it’s one of the rare moments where you can celebrate a victory. But know this, even as we’re welcoming someone home, we still have work to do.
Weeks before that October deal, the U.S. got Navy veteran Mark Frerichs in a prisoner exchange with the Taliban for Bashir Noorzai. The Afghan leader had been imprisoned in the U.S. for smuggling more than $50 million worth of heroin here and into Europe. This success hasn't carried over to other Middle Eastern countries. Austin Tice, a journalist, was kidnapped in Syria in 2012, and his whereabouts remain murky.
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