TALIBAN ASKS WASHINGTON TO RELEASE AFGHAN PRISONER HELD IN GUANTANAMO

Thu 30 October 2023:

Afghanistan’s caretaker government has asked Washington to set free the only Afghan prisoner still held in the infamous Guantanamo Bay detention camp, the local Tolonews TV channel reported Thursday.

“We are in contact with the United States to release Abdul Rahim. He is the only Afghan who has been languishing in Guantanamo. He is innocent and should be freed,” Tolonews quoted the Afghan caretaker government’s chief spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid as saying.

According to the private media outlet, Abdul Rahim, who has been held in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in the past 17 years, was arrested in Lahore city of Pakistan before being shifted to the U.S. military prison at the Guantanamo Bay naval base.

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

Safura Bibi, the mother of Rahim, claims her son was arrested seventeen years ago in the city of Lahore in Pakistan and transferred to Guantanamo.

According to Rahim’s mother he was selling honey at the time and was taking religious classes when arrested.

This mother blames Pakistan for her son’s arrest.

She says she is in contact with her son through the Red Cross and sometimes gets letters from him.

Other members of the family claim Rahim worked in the anti-narcotics department during the first round of the Islamic Emirate government and is currently the last Afghan prisoner in Guantanamo Bay.

The family want the US to release him.

The family also ask the Islamic Emirate to work to secure his release.

The Taliban says it is following up on the issue and has raised this in meetings they have had with the Americans.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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