Afghanistan’s brutal Taliban regime operates a squalid prison that’s the “closest thing to hell,” according to an elderly British couple who say they were detained in its moldy, rat-infested cells.
Constructed in the 1970s, the Pul-e-Charkhi prison was built to house 5,000 inmates — but the maximum-security lockup regularly holds up to 15,000 people, per the Daily Mail.
Peter Reynolds, 80, and his 76-year-old wife, Barbie, who lived in the nation for 18 years, told The Times that they were held separately in the facility for three months of a nearly eight-month detention in 2025 by the Sunni Islamist militants, who have still not given a reason for the pair’s apprehension.
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While the couple were not actively harmed during their incarceration, previous reports have claimed that prisoners at Pul-e-Charkhi are routinely beaten and tortured by sadistic guards.
The retirees, who were wed in the capital city of Kabul in 1970, were arrested on undisclosed charges as they traveled back to their home in Bamyan province in central Afghanistan.
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Peter, who has a serious heart condition, was held in a cell with two other men. But the couple claims at times he was cuffed to rapists and cold-blooded killers.
Meanwhile, Barbie was crammed into a cell housing 15 women and two children — with only five bunk beds, meaning some women were forced to sleep on the floor.
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She recalled to The Times, per Daily Mail: “Everybody gets a blanket provided by an NGO [non-governmental organization], which we had to wash ourselves every two weeks. There were four showers, but none worked, so we had to use taps, and all the water ran into a drain full of trash down the middle of the corridor.”
Barbie said 90 percent of the women she spoke with were “not criminals,” and many didn’t know the length of their sentences — but one woman was jailed for six months for the female-forbidden act of driving a car, and a mother of four was sentenced to five years because her jealous husband had killed a man who had spoken to her.
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During the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, inmates were fed just once a day. But other times, only two daily meals were provided, she claims.
Barbie, who suffered from malnutrition during her containment, said they were served a piece of bread, overcooked vegetables and rice and beans — and twice a week received bones, skin and fat that might contain “one or two” morsels of meat.
Diplomatic efforts from British and Qatari officials led to the Reynolds’ release, and they returned in England in September 2025.
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