Guantanamo Bay inmate has dating profile on Match.com and says he's 'detained but ready to mingle'

Muhammad Rahim al-Afghani's lawyer monitors how many winks his Match.com profile receives

Alexandra Sims
Tuesday 15 September 2015 18:59 BST
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Muhammad Rahim al-Afghani, an Afghan citizen who has been held at the US detention centre in Cuba since 2008
Muhammad Rahim al-Afghani, an Afghan citizen who has been held at the US detention centre in Cuba since 2008

An inmate at Guantanamo Bay has an online dating profile and is “detained but ready to mingle,” according to his lawyer.

Muhammad Rahim al-Afghani, an Afghan citizen who has been held at the US detention centre in Cuba since 2008, revealed in a letter that he is a Match.com user and voiced concern over the hacking of infidelity website Ashley Madison.

“This is terrible news about Ashley Madison please remove my profile immediately!!! I’ll stick with Match.com… There is no way I can get Tinder in here", he wrote in a letter dated 21 July, according to Al Jazeera.

Muhammad Rahim al-Afghani has been detained in Guantanamo since 2008

Afghani has reportedly asked his lawyer, Carlos Warner, to keep him updated on the winks his profile receives. According to Mr Warner, Afghani describes himself as someone who is “detained but ready to mingle”.

One of the prison’s “high value” detainees, Afghani is described as a senior Al-Qaeda member and a “close associate of Osama bin Laden”. He was captured in Pakistan by the CIA in 2007 before being detained in at Guantanamo the following year.

Afghani is held in Camp 7 and has access to a wide array of news articles, magazines and satellite television channels, according to Al Jazeera.

Other letters he has written focus on American pop-culture and politics.

Referring to the transgender reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner, Afghani wrote that he is “happy for her because people are born how they are”.

In another letter, Afghani dubs US presidential candidate Donald Trump an “idiot”.

While in CIA custody, Afghani was tortured, according to a Senate Intelligence Committee report detailing abuse of the agency’s prisoners.

He refers to this in his letters saying: “How do I get out of here? I am innocent and I was tortured. Hung from the ceiling until I was dead”.

Despite being detained for seven years, Afghani has yet to be charged with a crime.

The CIA said in 2008 that Afghani helped Osama bin Laden escape Afghanistan in 2001 and that he posed a “continuing threat” to the US.

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