Kabul hands over Ali Haider Gilani to Pakistani officials

Pakistan ex-prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani's son Ali Haider Gilani has been handed over to Pakistan officials in Kabul.

He was rescued by a U.S.-Afghanistan security team three years after being kidnapped.

A special aircraft left Islamabad for Kabul to fly back Ali Haider home who was recovered in a joint operation of Afghan and US forces from an Al Qaeda compound in Afghanistan's Paktika province, reports the Dawn.

Senior protocol officials of the Pakistan Foreign Office and the brother of Ali Haider Gilani are in Kabul to bring Ali Haider home, said Foreign Office spokesperson Nafees Zakaria.

Zakaria said Ali Haider would be handed over to Pakistan Ambassador to Afghanistan Syed Ibrar Hussain at the ministry of defence in Kabul, from where he would be taken to Kabul airport to travel to Pakistan.

The information about the recovery of Haider, who was kidnapped after an election rally in May 2013 in his hometown Multan, was conveyed by Afghan National Security Adviser Mohammad Hanif Atmar to Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz in a telephonic conversation.

Yusuf Raza Gilani was ecstatically delighted as expected and grateful to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's personal attention to his son's safe release," the Afghan ambassador said in a statement.