Taliban asks US to release last Afghan prisoner held in Guantanamo

Kabul, Nov 30 (IANS) The Taliban regime in Kabul has asked the US to release the only Afghan prisoner still held in the infamous Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba, local media reported on Thursday. 

"We are in contact with the US to release Abdul Rahim. He is the only Afghan who has been languishing in Guantanamo. He is innocent and should be freed," Xinhua news agency quoted the local media citing the Taliban's chief spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid as saying.

Mujahid claimed that Rahim was "arrested without any crime andhas been there for a long time and has suffered cruelty".

"He should be released as soon as possible,” he added.

According to the media report, Abdul Rahim, who has been held in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in the past 17 years, was arrested in Lahore before being shifted to the US military prison.

Abdul Rahim's son Mohammad Daud told the local media that he was two months old when his father was arrested and urged Americans to set his father free. 

The family has claimed that Rahim sold honey in Lahore.

As of March 2022, of the 780 people detained in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp since January 2002 when it first opened after the 9/11 attacks, 741 have been been transferred, nine died while in custody and 30 still remain imprisoned.

--IANS

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