A veteran of the Canadian airborne regiment and a former United Nations security advisor, Dave Lavery has been traveling out and in of Kabul for 20 years.
Because the Taliban returned to power in 2021, he has also helped evacuate a whole bunch of Afghans vulnerable to reprisals due to their work for Canada’s military.
But while the Taliban had not troubled him previously, when he landed at Hamid Karzai airport on the morning of Nov. 11, 2024, they gave the impression 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 per 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 2 Afghan families cleared to return 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 type of stuff,” he said, describing the allegations the Taliban’s general directorate of intelligence put to him during interrogations.
He said he still doesn’t know what, if any, deals were made by the Canadian government or the Qatari intermediaries who negotiated his release. “That’s the million-dollar query,” he said.
Dave and Junping Lavery speak to Global News in Dubai, Feb. 2, 2025.
Global News
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 avoided making any public statements, but after per 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 along 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 an extended record of international humanitarian service. After 20 years within the Canadian military, he went to work for the United Nations as a security advisor in 2000.
Canadian Dave, as he is understood, responded to crises world wide, 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 within the mountains outside Kabul, an experience that led him to maneuver to the town in 2010 as a non-public contractor.
Through his company Raven Rae Resources Group, he continued in the identical area of interest he had occupied on the UN — until U.S. forces began their disastrous 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Because the Islamist militants advanced on Kabul, Afghans who had assisted the Canadian military and government were eager to escape, fearing Taliban revenge.
Working with Veterans Transition Network, a B.C.-based charity funded by the federal government, he brought them to protected houses and stayed on as Afghans mobbed the airport, attempting to get on evacuation flights.
He helped a whole bunch get onto the planes before hopping on one among the last ones himself, and from his latest 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 relies in Vancouver and was arrange in 2012 to offer counseling and trauma programs to veterans.
Journal Canadian veteran Dave Lavery kept during his 77 days as a Taliban prisoner.
Handout
The day before he left for Kabul, Lavery posed for a photograph on the beach in Dubai, holding a duplicate of the book he was reading: Escape from Kabul.
The following morning, wearing a navy jacket with a red poppy within the lapel, he took a selfie on the bus on the Dubai airport and sent it to his colleagues.
He was the primary off the plane in Kabul. He cleared customs and got his suitcase from the bags carousel, but he soon suspected he was being followed.
He said he had left the terminal and was walking to the car parking zone to fulfill Junping, who was already in Kabul, when security officials grabbed him.
They took him back contained in the airport and went through his bags, finding the plane tickets and visas from the Canadian government.
The Taliban also took an unhealthy interest within the beret and combat jacket he had dropped at wear to honour Canada’s fallen on Remembrance Day.
Blindfolded and with a shawl binding his hands, he was put into the back of a vehicle and brought to a cell, starting what he calls his “illegal 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, however it was quickly apparent the worst had happened: the Taliban had taken him prisoner.
Remembering his military training, Lavery said he tried to remain calm and understand his surroundings.
His interrogator explained that if he cooperated, an investigation could formally begin, but when he didn’t, they’d come back in a month and take a look at again.
This might 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 4 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 may very well be his home for a very long time, and anything lower than that may be a bonus. He got right into a routine of walking laps around his cell.
Canadian military veteran Dave Lavery was released by the Taliban on Jan. 26, 2025.
Veterans Transition Network
Hoping to get to a hospital, where he might have the option 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 alternative.
The Taliban responded mockingly. That they had seen his online profile, which described him as Canadian Dave. Canadian Dave didn’t need a health care provider, they said, Canadian Dave was strong.
“What’s fallacious, 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 brought to a “guest house” compound where 4 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 in regards to 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.
Canadian veteran Dave Lavery with Qatari officials after he was released by Taliban, Jan. 26, 2025.
Handout
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 primary 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 capable of charge it up and phone his son Brant, who was shocked to listen to 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 touch with the Qataris and believed his release was imminent.
“And I used to be capable of feed Dad a few of this type of information,” Brant said in an interview. “I feel it boosted his morale.”
The family had an added incentive to see Lavery freed as quickly as possible. Brant and his wife expect their first child within the spring, they usually wanted him there.
“Trust me, I used to be pushing Global Affairs Canada and everybody I could. I used to be phoning, and I had phone calls with Minister Joly,” Brant said.
“It’s something that we actually wanted. We were pushing for that. In our calls with Minister Joly, she said she would work very hard on that.”
Canadian Dave Lavery is reunited with wife Junping at Doha airport, Qatar.
Handout
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 got here to his room.
“Excellent news David,” in keeping with the account of the conversation in his journal. “You might be being released — 100% tomorrow you’ll 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 among his last diary entries reads. “Wow I’m going home on day 77. I used to be 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 have to 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 happy” with Global Affairs Canada, and said Joly “was improbable” and gave his son her direct number so that they could talk.
He has no plans to return to Kabul, he said.
The Qataris told the family it was the fastest case they’d ever handled. The Afghan families Lavery went to assist were also evacuated safely to Pakistan by road.
Brant said the family is overjoyed that Lavery shall be there when his grandson is born.
“We will rejoice something really positive for the entire family. And we all know that dad is definitely going to be there with us,” Brant said.
“Loads of stuff was working behind the scenes, and Canada was an enormous a part of that and the Qataris as well.”
“We want to actually thank so many individuals.”
Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca
