Family of jailed American aid workers on ‘emotional roller coaster’

By Kathy Gannon

Associated Press

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – The father of an American aid worker jailed for allegedly preaching Christianity in Afghanistan pleaded with Taliban rulers Friday to let him travel to Kabul to be with his daughter, who is sick with fear.

John Mercer, says his 24-year-old daughter, Heather, has been unwell in recent days. Mercer blames the emotional strain of 64 days of confinement.

“I think she is just emotionally spent. She is very afraid of the fighting she hears between the Taliban and the northern alliance, afraid of what the United States might do and I just think her fears have gotten the better of her,” Mercer said.

Mercer is in Pakistan along with Heather’s mother, Deborah Oddy, and Nancy Cassell, mother of Dayna Curry, 29, the second American woman imprisoned in Kabul.

They are among eight international aid workers charged with trying to convert Muslims to Christianity, a serious crime in that devout Islamic nation. The defendants also include four Germans and two Australians.

Hopes that they may see their children were raised when their Pakistani lawyer, Atif Ali Khan, said court officials in Kabul were willing to allow families to attend trial proceedings.

The worried parents spent most of Friday morning at the Taliban Embassy in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, pleading for visas to Afghanistan.

Taliban diplomats said they had been unable to contact officials in Afghanistan to confirm the lawyer’s statement.

“We are really optimistic of getting visas, perhaps this weekend,” Mercer said.

Within days of the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States, the Taliban ordered all Westerners to leave the country, including the parents of the aid workers.

The parents wrote letters telling their children they loved them, they were with them in their thoughts and that they would return.

Now the three Americans hope they might be able to keep that promise.

“I would love to go back. I just want to be there to sit with her,” Oddy said.

For Heather Mercer’s parents, there is a particular urgency because they are worried about her emotional well-being.

On Thursday, a doctor treated Mercer. According to the lawyer, Khan, she was in better spirits Friday.

Oddy says her daughter carries a particularly painful burden – the death just one year ago of her younger sister who had suffered two painful back operations.

“She didn’t give herself time to heal before going to Afghanistan,” Oddy said. “At the time, we had hoped she would delay her trip. She wasn’t 100 percent then.”

Her parents believe part of the emotional strain is her concern for them.

“John and I have buried two children. She is feeling for her parents right now,” Oddy said.

The aid workers all are employees of the German-based Christian organization Shelter Now International.

Sixteen Afghan staff of the same aid organization also were arrested.

The Taliban’s chief justice, Noor Mohammed Saqib, has refused to discuss a punishment should the foreign aid workers be found guilty, saying that would be premature. For Afghans, the mandatory penalty for preaching Christianity is death.

The trial began in Kabul almost one month ago, but it was delayed for nearly two weeks following the attacks in the United States.

It resumed last weekend when Khan, the lawyer hired by the family, saw his clients for the first time. The Taliban’s Supreme Court gave him up to two weeks to prepare his defense.

Mercer said he wasn’t certain when and how the trial would be conducted since Taliban courts do not follow Western forms.

“The lawyer might summit his report to the court and that might be followed by a decision,” he said. “We are hoping for something quickly.”