Afghan Female Intelligence Officer Reveals Torture in Taliban Prison

Raiessa Yazdanparast, a former senior officer at the National Directorate of Security (NDS), has disclosed that she was detained by the Taliban from her home in Kabul and subjected to one and a half months of torture in prison.

Yazdanparast told Afghanistan International that the Taliban have access to information about NDS officers, leading to their arrest and torture.

As the head of the women's section at the former NDS's 050 department, Yazdanparast recounted that on 15 January 2022, Taliban fighters entered her home in Kabul under the pretext of conducting a search operation. Upon entry, they struck her face with a rifle butt.

"I handed over my weapon to the Taliban, but they took me with them, and for one and a half months, at the 40th Directorate of Intelligence, I was beaten and tortured with rifles, fists, and kicks," she said.

Yazdanparast explained that the Taliban have access to information about former NDS employees, allowing them to identify and detain them. She also mentioned that her son, who worked for the NDS, had left the country before the Taliban took over.

Images provided by Yazdanparast to Afghanistan International show her face and body bruised from the torture.

Yazdanparast, who holds the rank of colonel, said she was released from Taliban captivity on 6 March 2022, through the mediation of local elders and subsequently fled Afghanistan.

Having served in the NDS since the government of former President Najibullah in the early 1990s, except during the first Taliban regime, Yazdanparast stated that she served in the intelligence agencies of former Afghan governments for 25 years.

She revealed that she was held in solitary confinement and that all the prison guards were men. After her release from Taliban custody, she underwent about a year of medical treatment.

Yazdanparast also recounted that the Taliban killed her husband in 2008 due to his work with foreigners. He was a translator at Bagram Air Base during Hamid Karzai's presidency.

"The Taliban warned my husband several times not to work with foreigners, but he ignored their threats and was killed by them one morning on his way to work," she said.