<p><a href="/en/afganistan/kabul" class="glossify-link">KABUL</a>, an official said Wednesday.</p>
<p>Aziz Ahmad Sarbaz, head of the delegation for receiving Afghan prisoners from Iran, told a press conference in Kabul that around 4,000 to 5,000 Afghans were imprisoned in Iran.</p>
<p>He said 650 of the Afghan inmates were extradited to Afghanistan a week back and they were currently kept in western Herat province. However, Sarbaz did not provide further information in this regard.</p>
<p>According to him, Iran had previously extradited 630 Afghan inmates to Afghanistan in 1395 and 1396 solar years.</p>
<p>The cases of these Afghan prisoners would be reconsidered and their jail terms also changed, he added.</p>
<p>He hoped about 2,000 more Afghan prisoners jailers would be brought home from Iran until mid-1398 <a href="/en/solar-year" class="glossify-link">solar year</a>.</p>
<p>“Only those Afghan inmates whose verdicts are final in their cases and whose identity is clear and are interested to go to their country are extradited”, he said.</p>
<p>“Iran told us that around 4,000 to 5,000 Afghans are imprisoned there and 1,000 of them said that they do not want to be extradited to Afghanistan,” Sarbaz said.</p>
<p>He said Iranian inmates in Afghanistan were subjected to similar conditions and so far 78 of them had been extradited to Iran and eight others were still in Afghanistan jails.</p>
<p>According to the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation, around 800,000 Afghan refugees live legally in Iran while nearly a million others live there without legal documents.</p>
<p>The Attorney General Office says Afghan inmates extradited to Afghanistan were accused of different crimes but most were imprisoned over drug trafficking.</p>
<p>AGO spokesman Jamshid Rasouli said: “The AGO always tries to defend the rights and freedom of people inside and outside the country and extradition of Afghan inmates from foreign countries is a program of the national unity government.”</p>
<p>He said Afghanistan had agreements with Tajikistan, Russia and Iran on exchange of prisoners and such agreements would be also signed with <a href="/en/pakistan" class="glossify-link">Pakistan</a> and some other countries in near future.</p>
<p>However, he did not provide information about the number of Afghan inmates currently held abroad, excluding Iran.</p>
<p>mds/ma</p>
