Taliban release US academic held in detention for more than a year

Marco Rubio welcomes release of Dennis Coyle, who was detained in January last year for violating unspecified laws

Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities have released American academic Dennis Coyle after holding him for over a year, with the foreign ministry saying the release came on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday that marks the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

A statement from the ministry said the academic researcher had been released in Kabul on Tuesday, following an appeal from his family and after Afghanistan’s supreme court “considered his previous imprisonment sufficient”.