ATLANTA — An Atlanta man freed from Taliban captivity in March is talking about what it was like to be held hostage in Afghanistan.
George Glezmann said that for more than two years, he was regularly beaten by his captors for refusing to renounce his Roman Catholic faith.
“They would come as often as they could, you know, very often, they would come in and kick me or slap me,” Glezmann told Channel 2 investigative reporter Mark Winne.
Glezmann said he frequently refused to trade his faith for his freedom during the roughly two years and four months the Taliban wrongfully detained him in Kabul, Afghanistan.
“I’m a Catholic, Roman Catholic. And the first thing that we human beings do when we feel in trouble is to pray to God,” Glezmann said.
Glezmann said he faced near constant pressure by his captors to convert to Islam, not only in the form of physical abuse -- ranging from beatings to buckets of cold water in the icy Afghan winter -- But also with the promise of freedom.
“They would come in and try to get me to convert. If you convert to Islam, we’re going to release you in two days,” Glezmann said he was told.
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Glezmann said he doesn’t know if the Taliban would truly have released him if he converted.
He said those were likely false promises, except at the very end of his captivity when the Trump administration gained his release.
“Sometimes the guards would hear noise in the room because I’m walking. And they would come in and open the door and see me praying, and they would be like, ‘No, no, no, no. Pray like this. Don’t pray like this,’” Glezmann said.
Glezmann said he wants to be very clear to his Muslim friends.
“I respect their faith, and they respect mine,” Glezmann said.
He does not believe that most who follow Islam agree with the approach taken towards him by the Taliban.
“They believe they’re the true Muslims,” Glezmann said.
Glezmann said he was a Delta Air Lines mechanic with an Anthropology degree who had visited 133 other countries to explore their cultures when he traveled by ground into Afghanistan from Pakistan and had begun to explore the streets of Kabul when he was taken by the Taliban.
“They beat me, they dragged me to the side of the street, they cuffed me,” Glezmann said.
Glezmann said he detested the beard he wore in a video shot near the second of his three Christmases in captivity, and his captors told him it would be a sin if they allowed him to cut it off. Though he did so months before his release.
At his low points, with his physical and emotional health deteriorating, Glezmann said he wondered why God had not delivered him like his cellmate, American Ryan Corbett, who was released near the very end of the Biden administration.
But in the end, his prayers and those of his wife Aleksandra, were answered when special presidential envoy Adam Boehler and a case officer embraced him.
“I felt like a kid when he gets lost in a crowd in a shopping center or something. And suddenly your father finds you and takes you up and hugs you and you feel safe, you feel home again,” Glezmann said.
“Your father above never lost you?” Winne asked Glezmann.
“That’s correct. My Father above in heaven,” Glezmann said.
Glezman said he has forgiven his captors and, in the process, helped himself heal.
He said his captors eventually allowed phone calls to his wife, which were critical to his survival, and medical visits.
Glezman said he will continue to travel because it’s such an important part of his life, but he won’t be going to any more dangerous places like Afghanistan.
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