A British couple who were imprisoned in one of the Taliban's most notorious facilities said they 'survived hell'.
Peter Reynolds, 80, and his wife, Barbie, 76, lived in Afghanistan for 18 years when they were arrested while travelling back to their home in Bamyan province on undisclosed charges.
US troops were ordered to leave Afghanistan after a 20-year war, which meant that the Taliban rose to power on 15 August 2021.
“Our neighbours were all trying to get away in their cars. The airport was chaos,” Peter told The Times.
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“We’d already decided to stay. We were now Afghan citizens. We’d just got our citizenship and passports. We weren’t going to desert them in their worst hour of need.”
They were arrested after landing in Bamiyan in February 2025 and were summoned to 'meet a commander'.
What was meant to be a brief questioning included three months of detention in Pul-e-Charkhi.
Peter recalled: “I got to know every crack in the walls of that cell.
“And we had a very big rat that would run over my pillow before he came to an untimely death with a shoe.
“I couldn’t get anybody to agree to me seeing Barbie.
“I would be asking, ‘Is my wife still alive?’”
Barbie added: “Everybody gets a blanket provided by an NGO, which we had to wash ourselves every two weeks.
“There were four showers, but none worked, so we had to use taps.”
She said that there was 'just a squatty potty, a hole in the ground' to go to the bathroom.
“Sometimes the children missed the target, so it wasn’t very pleasant,” Barbie said.
But thanks to ongoing media and family pressure, intervention from the UK Foreign Office and a lack of evidence of criminality, the couple from Bath were set free on 19 September 2025.
Barbie said: “We tried not to get too excited as there had been so many disappointments. At least we were together.
“They drove us to a building we didn’t recognise.
"Then suddenly the door opens and in walk two people from the British Foreign Office [one of whom was Lindsay] as well as Qataris in their long white robes, a medical team and some other Afghans.”
“One of the Qataris said, we’ve got lots of surprises for you today. When I saw steak — filet mignon — I said, forget the alternatives, I’m having that,” Peter added.
“And they took us to the most luxurious jet we’d ever seen with a double bed of immaculate pristine white linen.”
With no home to go to, they are currently staying in their son Daniel’s flat. They returned with only the clothes they had on.
“All our belongings are still in Afghanistan, and the Taliban have sealed our house, so no one can go there,” Peter said.
Topics: Travel, World News, UK News
Anish Vij