Al-Murtadha: Saudi Arabia failed 80 prisoner exchanges in 2021

Abdul Qadir al-Murtadha, chairman of the National Committee for Prisoners’ Affairs, said that  it has been expected that 2021 would see the biggest achievement in the prisoners’ file despite making all concessions to the  obstruction of Saudi-led  aggression.

He pointed out that Saudi Arabia has full control over the prisoners file, stressing that the mercenaries have no decision except with the approval of Saudi officers and many exchange deals have failed because of Saudi Arabia.

“The aim of Saudi Intransigence is that it wants to have a deal involving all its officers and soldiers and we told them we are ready to release everyone, but they want to release the Saudis without releasing our prisoners,”  Abdul Qadir al-Murtadha said on Friday.

He noted that 2021 witnessed  the liberation of 400 prisoners from the army and popular committees in 60 local exchanges, compared to 80 operations that failed were failed  due to Saudi directives despite consensus with those concerned.

On the Sudanese prisoners, al-Murtadha said that there is no party negotiating the Sudanese prisoners. “We have asked the United Nations to have a Sudanese party concerned with prisoners file,” he added.

He stressed that in 2020 there was a good role for the United Nations and after that the biggest exchange took place, but 2021 the United Nations had a relative move and then its role United weakened significantly. We did not “see any achievement of the UN in all the files and we hope that it will take care of the prisoners file”.

Al-Murtadha concluded by saying, “There were several meetings with the UN during 2021 discussed many issues related to prisoners and we hope that there will be a breakthrough in this file.”