American Who Died In Kandahar Jail Unidentified

Representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have refuted the reports released by the Taliban that they have received the body of an American who died in a Kandahar jail. The Taliban Ambassador to Islamabad Abdul Salam Zaif stated in his conversation with journalists that the body of the California-born John Poletan (also Bolton and Berton, according to other sources) has been handed to the ICRC. According to the News newspaper, the ICRC employees have refused to accept the body without conducting an autopsy, which they cannot carry out in the present conditions in Afghanistan. According to the Taliban, the American was detained on October 26. He called himself Mazar Ayub Khan and claimed that he was a journalist. The man died of an unidentified disease in a jail in the city of Kandahar. At the moment his body has been brought to Kabul to be transferred to the Pakistani authorities at the border post of Torham.