(AKI) - Italian charity Emergency has closed its three hospitals in Afghanistan, the organization said Thursday. The decision was taken over a month after an Emergency official, Rahmatullah Hanefi, who mediated for the release of reporter Daniele Mastrogiacomo in March, was arrested by Afghan authorities and accused of being an accessory to the murder of the journalist's interpreter at the hands of Taliban rebels who had abducted the two. The organization also said its personnel left the country Thursday after police visited its Kabul hospital and demanded that foreign employees hand over their passports.The request was rejected but Emergency decided it wasn't safe for them to remain in the country and the personnel left Afghanistan with the aid of the Italian embassy in Kabul.
"This last serious episode confirms how the Afghan government has been trying by all means available to expel Emergency from Afghanistan," said the statement, recalling that the head of Afghan security services Amrullah Saleh had called the charity "an organization which supports terrorists and even members of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan."
"The impossibility for the international personnel to remain makes the hospitals unable to offer services of sufficient quality to satisfy the needs of patients," Emergency also said in the statement. "We cannot take the responsibility of deceiving the wounded and sick with illusions that would damage them."
Hanefi, who risks the death penalty, was arrested by Afghan intelligence officials on 20 March and accused of cooperating with the Taliban. An Afghan citizen, he worked for Emergency's hospital in Lashkar Gah in the southern volatile Helmand province.
Hanefi had directly mediated with the Taliban for the release of Mastrogiacomo but Afghan authorities claim he left the interpreter Adjmal Nashkbandi in the hands of the Taliban though he was supposed to be released with the Italian reporter.