Canadian Dave Lavery recounts his 77 days as a prisoner of the Taliban – National

A veteran of the Canadian airborne regiment and a former United Nations security advisor, Dave Lavery has been traveling in and out of Kabul for two decades.

Since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, he has also helped evacuate hundreds of Afghans vulnerable to reprisals because of their work for Canada’s military.

But while the Taliban had not troubled him in the past, when he landed at Hamid Karzai airport on the morning of Nov. 11, 2024, they seemed to be waiting for him.

They took him into custody and held him for 77 days until finally letting him go on Jan. 26. “It was nerve-wracking, it was intimidating,” he told Global News on Sunday.

In an interview a week after he was freed, Lavery said the Taliban questioned him repeatedly about whether he was a spy. His captors were also suspicious because he was carrying 18 visas and plane tickets for two Afghan families cleared to come to Canada.

The beret and combat jacket in his bag similarly were held against him, he said, although they were simply to wear when he lay a Remembrance Day wreath at a memorial for Canadian soldiers.

“I’m a spy, that kind of stuff,” he said, describing the allegations the Taliban’s general directorate of intelligence put to him during interrogations.

He said he still does not know what, if any, deals were made by the Canadian government or the Qatari intermediaries who negotiated his release. “That’s the million-dollar question,” he said.

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly announced Lavery’s released last Sunday, and thanked Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.

Since then, Lavery had refrained from making any public statements, but after a week of freedom, he spoke to Global News from his home in Dubai, joined by his wife, Junping.

He also shared a journal he kept during his captivity. It begins with his name, birthdate, a note to his family and a vow to “never give in,” and ends with the entry, “GOING HOME.”

Lavery has a long record of international humanitarian service. After two decades in the Canadian military, he went to work for the United Nations as a security advisor in 2000.

Canadian Dave, as he is known, responded to crises around the world, from Sudan and Somalia to Pakistan and Sri Lanka, working with UN agencies and NGOs.

He first visited Afghanistan in 2005, when a plane crashed in the mountains outside Kabul, an experience that led him to move to the city in 2010 as a private contractor.

Through his company Raven Rae Resources Group, he continued in the same niche he had occupied at the UN — until U.S. forces began their disastrous 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan.

As the Islamist militants advanced on Kabul, Afghans who had assisted the Canadian military and government were desperate to escape, fearing Taliban revenge.

Working with Veterans Transition Network, a B.C.-based charity funded by the federal government, he brought them to safe houses and stayed on as Afghans mobbed the airport, trying to get on evacuation flights.

He helped hundreds get onto the planes before hopping on one of the last ones himself, and from his new base in Dubai, continued helping Afghans flee, using convoys of vehicles to escort them and their families to Pakistan.

Meanwhile, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, he launched an operation in Poland that evacuated Ukrainians who had worked with the Canadian Forces.

“Dave Lavery is a Canadian hero,” said Gavin Dew, who chairs the VTN, which is based in Vancouver and was set up in 2012 to provide counseling and trauma programs to veterans.

The day before he left for Kabul, Lavery posed for a photo on the beach in Dubai, holding a copy of the book he was reading: Escape from Kabul.

The next morning, wearing a navy jacket with a red poppy in the lapel, he took a selfie on the bus at the Dubai airport and sent it to his colleagues.

He was the first off the plane in Kabul. He cleared customs and got his suitcase from the baggage carousel, but he soon suspected he was being followed.

He said he had left the terminal and was walking to the parking lot to meet Junping, who was already in Kabul, when security officials grabbed him.

They took him back inside the airport and went through his bags, finding the plane tickets and visas from the Canadian government.

The Taliban also took an unhealthy interest in the beret and combat jacket he had brought to wear to honour Canada’s fallen on Remembrance Day.

Blindfolded and with a scarf binding his hands, he was put into the back of a vehicle and taken to a cell, beginning what he calls his “unlawful detention.”

When Lavery didn’t emerge from Kabul airport, Junping waited and tried to call, but his phone was switched off. He didn’t answer WhatsApp messages either.

She showed his photo around and phoned Lavery’s son, but it was quickly apparent the worst had happened: the Taliban had taken him prisoner.

Remembering his military training, Lavery said he tried to stay calm and understand his surroundings.

His interrogator explained that if he cooperated, an investigation could formally begin, but if he didn’t, they would come back in a month and try again.

This could go on for years, the Taliban intelligence official explained, and Lavery had spent enough time in Afghanistan to know that to be true.

His cell was four meters by six meters, with a narrow window sealed with rebar. A mattress lay on a stained red carpet and there was a plastic cup for chai.

Lavery said he told himself this could be his home for a long time, and anything less than that would be a bonus. He got into a routine of walking laps around his cell.

Hoping to get to a hospital, where he might be able to get word to his family, he began playing the role of a frail old man, walking with a limp and complaining about kidney troubles and a hip replacement.

The Taliban responded mockingly. They had seen his online profile, which described him as Canadian Dave. Canadian Dave didn’t need a doctor, they said, Canadian Dave was strong.

“What’s wrong, Canadian Dave?”

Following a meal consisting of a fish head, he began vomiting and appealed to be taken to the hospital for tests, which they did.

He was then blindfolded and taken to a “guest house” compound where four Americans were also being held (two were soon released in a prisoner swap).

It was a step up from his cell, and there was a television where he could watch CNN.

The interrogations he went through were menacing, he said. The Taliban accused him of espionage and checked his body for a GPS tracker.

He was asked about the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, and Israel, and what he was doing in Ukraine. He responded that he was no spy. But, he said, he was not beaten or tortured.

On late December, the Taliban moved him again, this time to the villa that served as Lavery’s base in Kabul. He was under house arrest but had some comforts of home.

He was allowed to phone his family for the first time on Dec. 30. But he later found a Nokia phone that his captors had missed.

Once he got his hands on a cable, he was able to charge it up and phone his son Brant, who was shocked to hear his father’s voice.

Brant said in an interview that he reassured his dad that the Qatar government was keeping watch on him, and was working to get him out.

Canadian officials were also in contact with the Qataris and believed his release was imminent.

“And I was able to feed Dad some of this kind of information,” Brant said in an interview. “I think it boosted his morale.”

The family had an added incentive to see Lavery freed as quickly as possible. Brant and his wife are expecting their first child in the spring, and they wanted him there.

“Trust me, I was pushing Global Affairs Canada and everyone I could. I was phoning, and I had phone calls with Minister Joly,” Brant said.

“It’s something that we really wanted. We were pushing for that. In our calls with Minister Joly, she said she would work very hard on that.”

On Jan. 25, Lavery worked on the roof of the villa, ate a pizza dinner and wrote a note in his journal to Junping before a guard came to his room.

“Good news David,” according to the account of the conversation in his journal. “You are being released — 100% tomorrow you will go.”

The Taliban told him the country’s courts had decided he had been cooperative and had served enough time, although for what was never explained.

“Goodnight see you tomorrow,” one of his last diary entries reads. “Wow I am going home on day 77. I was very lucky.”

When his plane landed on Doha, he descended the air stairs and saw a row of officials on the tarmac. He thought a VIP must be on the plane.

But they were there for him. He posed for photos with the Qataris and was reunited with Junping and his son before returning to Dubai.

Lavery said he was “very, very pleased” with Global Affairs Canada, and said Joly “was fantastic” and gave his son her direct number so they could talk.

He has no plans to return to Kabul, he said.

The Qataris told the family it was the fastest case they had ever handled. The Afghan families Lavery went to help were also evacuated safely to Pakistan by road.

Brant said the family is overjoyed that Lavery will be there when his grandson is born.

“We can celebrate something really positive for the whole family. And we know that dad is actually going to be there with us,” Brant said.

“A lot of stuff was working behind the scenes, and Canada was a huge part of that and the Qataris as well.”

“We need to really thank so many people.”

Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca