Vienna says his national arrived in Doha after Qatari government mediation helped secure his release.
The Taliban have released Herbert Fritz, an 84-year-old Austrian far-right nationalist who was captured in Afghanistan last May.
The Austrian government said in a statement on Sunday that Fritz arrived in Doha, Qatar, earlier in the day after Qatari government mediation helped secure his release.
Fritz was arrested last year after defying Austria's longstanding warning against traveling to Afghanistan, which fell back under Taliban rule in 2021.
“I think it was bad luck, but I want to visit it again,” he told reporters upon his arrival in Doha when asked about his ordeal.
“There were some nice people, but there were also some stupid people, I'm sorry,” Fritz added, describing his captors.
After his arrest, the Austrian newspaper “Der Standard” reported that Fritz had traveled to Afghanistan and reported positively about life there. He published an article entitled “Vacation with the Taliban” through a right-wing extremist media outlet.
This helped fuel anti-immigrant arguments that Afghanistan was a safe country for refugees to return to, the paper said.
The Taliban arrested him on suspicion of espionage, and Austrian neo-Nazis made his case public via Telegram channels, said Der Standard.
The Austrian Foreign Ministry said it had been working on Fritz's release since May and thanked Qatar and the European Union mission in Kabul for their support in its efforts to secure his return to Austria.
An Austrian ministry spokesman told the Associated Press news agency that Fritz was being held in a prison in Kabul.
In a letter on
“It is only thanks to our trusting cooperation that this Austrian citizen can return to his daughter and grandchildren,” said Nehammer.
According to Der Standard and other media outlets, Fritz was a founding member of the country's National Democratic Party (NDP), a far-right group that was banned in 1988.
Austria's far-right Freedom Party, which is leading in opinion polls ahead of parliamentary elections later this year, had pushed for Fritz's release. The party said he was researching a book in Afghanistan.
The Qatari Foreign Ministry thanked the “interim government in Afghanistan” on
“The State of Qatar has demonstrated regionally and globally that it is a trustworthy international partner on various important issues,” the ministry said. “It spares no effort to apply its energy and skills in the areas of mediation, preventive diplomacy and peaceful resolution of disputes.”