ISLAMABAD (Islamweb & News Agencies) - Eight Western aid workers held by Afghanistan's Taliban on charges of promoting Christianity have been taken to the movement's southern stronghold of Kandahar, the father of a U.S. prisoner said on Tuesday.John Mercer emerged from a 20-minute meeting with Taliban diplomats in Islamabad to say they had confirmed the six women and two men were well but had been taken from Kabul by retreating Taliban forces.
Mercer, who has been seeking his daughter's release since shortly after the arrest of the group early in August, said the Taliban refused to discuss freeing the humanitarian workers.
The two Americans, two Australians and four Germans -- members of the German-based Christian charity Shelter Now International -- were awaiting trial after being detained by the hardline Islamic Taliban for allegedly spreading Christianity.
The punishment could range up to death sentences.
A senior Western diplomat said last week the eight were being constantly moved between different locations in Kabul, possibly to prevent a commando raid to rescue them, and were now clearly hostages.
The United States said it did not have any independent word on the whereabouts of the aid workers.
The trial of the eight aid workers had just begun when the U.S.-led military campaign was launched against the Taliban for sheltering Osama bin Laden, blamed for the suicide-hijacking attacks in the United States that killed some 4,600 people.
Atif Ali, a Pakistani lawyer hired to represent the eight, said Mercer went to the embassy to learn where the aid workers were and how the trial could proceed in current circumstances.
The Taliban had rejected earlier appeals by family and governments to release the aid workers, who have denied trying to convert Afghans from Islam. There has been no news on the fate of 16 local employees of the charity arrested at the same time.
The U.S. government has listed the release of the eight as one of the demands on the Taliban, along with handing over Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden and his senior lieutenants in the al Qaeda network who are blamed for the September 11 attacks on the United States.
The Taliban chief justice had promised a fair trial but any punishment would ultimately be decided by Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, who was based in Kandahar until the U.S. air strikes began on October 7.