An Afghan Red Cross worker who was arrested last spring for converting to Christianity has been released from an Afghanistan prison.
The worker, Said Musa, 46, was released from prison last week "after aggressive international diplomacy engaged Afghanistan’s government," International Christian Concern, an organization that worked directly with his case, said in a written statement Thursday.
Musa, who left Islam roughly eight years ago, was arrested in May after an Afghan TV report showed locals being baptized and called for the government to crack down on apostasy.
The father of six who lost a leg to a land mine and was working to help amputees reportedly was abused in prison and threatened with death if he did not renounce his faith.
According to ICC, Musa wrote in a Feb. 13 letter that U.S. and Italian Embassies offered him asylum but that Afghan officials subsequently told him that he would only be released if he wrote a statement declaring that he regretted his conversion to Christianity.
