A Guantanamo Bay prisoner's attorney is dismissing rumors that "Fifty Shades of Grey" is a favorite among inmates, saying that his client was offered the racy book but thought it was a joke and never opened it.
Lawyer James Connell said Ammar al-Baluchi, senior al-Qaida member and rumored 9/11 engineer, was given a copy of E.L. James' novel by a couple of guards at the high-security Camp 7 section of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba.
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Al-Baluchi, 35, a nephew of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was reportedly "more amused than offended" by the book.
Al-Baluchi reportedly handed the book over to Connell this week at a pre-trial hearing and told him what happened.
"Mr. Connell said his client has not read the book," the BBC reported. "He is an avid reader of The Economist and Wired magazine — and the novel did not interest him. … 'He knew that it was some sort of a joke, or some sort of disinformation campaign.'"
Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia made headlines last month after touring the detention center and
claiming that the book was popular with inmates.
"Rather than the Quran, the book that is requested most by the [detainees] is
'Fifty Shades of Grey,'" Moran told the Huffington Post. "They've read the entire series in English, but we were willing to translate it. I guess there's not much going on, these guys are going nowhere, so what the hell."
"Fifty Shades of Grey" is the best-selling first novel of a trilogy about sadomasochism.
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