Kidnapped professors beg Trump to negotiate their release in Taliban video

The Taliban on Wednesday released a video recording of two professors it kidnapped last year, showing the men begging President-elect Donald Trump to negotiate a prisoner exchange.

Timothy John Weekes, an Australian professor who was working at the American University in Kabul at the time of the capture, appears first in the video, and calls on the Americans to speak with the Taliban.

“This is a message for the President-elect, Donald Trump,” Weekes says.

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“Donald Trump sir, I ask you please. This is in your hands. I ask you please to negotiate with the Taliban. If you do not negotiate with them, we will be killed,” he continues. “Please, I beg you, please, for our families, please.”

In the video, Weekes also mentions a number of family members and talks about his mother, saying that she has been ill and that he does not know her condition.

Weekes says he previously pleaded with President Obama and is now turning to the president-elect.

“President Trump, please. I am pleading to you. I have asked to Obama and now I ask to you, please exchange us. Please get us out of here. I don’t know how much longer I can go here,” Weekes says.

Kevin King, the American professor who was kidnapped alongside Weekes, also begs Trump to negotiate an exchange for Taliban members being held at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

“We want you to talk to the American government and put pressure on them to negotiate our release. They can exchange us for some prisoners in Bagram and then we can go home and see our family,” King says.

“If you’re the new president and we just want you to put pressure on the government to continue negotiation and try to come to an agreement with the Taliban and arrange our exchange,” King adds.

Both men appear to be crying at various points in the video.

The two professors were reportedly kidnapped at gunpoint in Kabul in August.

The Obama administration in 2014 exchanged five Taliban prisoners, dubbed “The Taliban Five,” for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.

The Haqqani Network, which is affiliated with the Taliban, was reportedly holding Bergdahl since his capture in 2009.

Bergdahl is set to face a trial over charges he deserted his unit in Afghanistan.