Lithuania turns down second YouTube assistance plea from Afghani interpreter

“We made a negative decision in his case,” Interior Vice-Minister Elvinas Jankevičius told BNS on Wednesday.

The English-language address to Lithuania by Afghan national Nazir Honar was uploaded on YouTube by US journalist Josh Friedman.

Jankevičius says that the ministry has checked if Honar’s statements were accurate.

“The practice is that information uploaded on YouTube with requests is not official. We have checked and the information about his heroic deeds was not confirmed,” said Jankevičius.

In the video, Honar claims he has worked for a peace and integration programme funded by the United Nations and closely cooperated with Lithuanian troops. Honar said his tasks included mediating between Lithuania’s Armed Forces and the Taliban, a duty that later put him in danger.

Jankevičius says, however, that while some of it is true, Honar’s input “was rather insignificant”.

In late March, Friedman published another recording from the same refugee camp in Greece where Abdul Basir Yoususi, formerly an interpreter for Lithuanian soldiers in Afghanistan, asked for help in Lithuanian. The video drew much attention in the media and social networks. The Lithuanian government arranged for the man to be flown to Lithuania a week later and his asylum application is currently being processed.

Jankevičius says several similar pleas from people claiming to have worked with Lithuanian troops emerged after Yoususi’s story.

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