Afghan convicted of rape in U.S. was able to catch evacuation flight from Afghanistan

One of the tens of thousands of Afghan nationals who managed to make it out of Afghanistan in the airlift carried out by the U.S. and its allies was a 47-year-old man named Ghader Heydari, a convicted felon who had previously been deported from the U.S. 

Heydari was arrested on August 27 soon after he arrived, via Germany, at Washington's Dulles International Airport after catching an evacuation flight out of Kabul, according to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson. The Washington Times first reported his detention. In 2010, Heydari was found guilty of felony rape in Idaho and sentenced to 18 years in prison. He was first deported from the U.S. to Afghanistan in 2017, where he remained until last month.