The vice president, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, is said to have had a political rival beaten “in a barbaric way” at a sporting event, before kidnapping him.
A man charged in the kidnapping of a woman found alive confessed to the unsolved killings of four people in 2003, and may be linked to a total of seven deaths, the authorities said.
A jury has been seated for the retrial of Pedro Hernandez, who is accused of kidnapping the killing 6-year-old Etan in 1979. Opening statements are scheduled for Wednesday.
Officials revealed last month that they had been negotiating with the Islamist militant group to gain the release of girls taken in April 2014.