UK fears Guantanamo Shaker Aamer’s torture evidence
Shaker Aamer, a British resident born in Saudi Arabia, was cleared
for release in 2007 under President Bush and then again two years later
after a review ordered by President Obama.
Mr Obama has vowed again to close Guantanamo, and Mr Aamer is one of almost 80 detainees cleared for release. However, although there are no complicated issues about the UK’s human-rights record, his release is still held up.
Clive Stafford Smith, the director of the legal charity Reprieve, said Mr Aamer, 45, continues to be held because of concern he would give evidence against intelligence agents.
As one of the first prisoners held at Bagram air base, in Afghanistan, in 2001, Mr Aamer has told his lawyers and the Metropolitan Police that he was in the room when a detainee called Ibn Sheikh al-Libi was being abused in the presence of British intelligence officers.
Mr al-Libi said that Saddam Hussein was in league with al-Qaeda over weapons of mass destruction, bogus information cited by Mr Bush in the run-up to the Iraq war.
In public, Britain continues to call for Mr Aamer’s release after 12 years, and David Cameron raised the case with Mr Obama recently. However, according to Aamer’s lawyers, he has been offered release only to Saudi Arabia — five times — but not to London, where his wife and four children live and where he has indefinite leave to remain.
Mr Stafford Smith said: “Shaker is a witness to British complicity in a really devastatingly damaging torture story and there are people within the British intelligence establishment who don’t want him as a witness and would want him sent to Saudi Arabia.
“Of course, he can’t be a witness in any sort of criminal prosecution if he’s in Gitmo. We’ve now said that we don’t want him to be a witness. The honest truth is he doesn’t want to have anything to do with that, he just wants to come home to his family.”
The Times has obtained details of Mr Aamer’s recent communications with his legal team, in which he declares himself to be a hostage, appears distressed by lack of sleep, voices sympathy for the stress endured by his guards and, in an odd insight into life in Camp Five, tells how detainees smuggle food into the recreation yard to feed Princess, the camp’s cat.
The extracts, transcribed from telephone calls, letters and interviews with his lawyers are all from this year, and show his anxiety about the limbo he finds himself in as efforts to close the camp have become a political football.
In one extract, Mr Aamer says: “For how long must we do everything again and again and again. The same way, the same story, the same everything for the last 12 years. Nothing’s changed; everything’s getting worse in Gitmo.”
Loud and clear: I am a hostage
How long?
For how long must we do everything again and again and again. The same way, the same story, the same everything for the last 12 years. Nothing’s changed; everything’s getting worse in Gitmo. How much longer do you have to repeat the same song about what’s going on with us and what the US government is doing wrong. How long is it going to take the world to understand the words of the song?
Hostage
No more calling me detainee prisoner. I am a hostage loud and clear. Seven years after I have been cleared by two governments and dozens of government branches. They threatened to send me to Saudi Arabia five times, yet I am still here. After the British government claims it has done everything it can to bring me back, and I have no doubt that they can meet all the requirements of the US. Yet I am still here after all that. The British prime minister has personally asked for my release more than once, yet I’m still here. With all my health problems, I’m still in Gitmo. That’s why I’m a hostage, not a detainee or a prisoner or a free man.
The guards
If you ask any guard if he is happy he will tell you no. A fast ‘no’. And in the last 12 years of speaking, listening, educating, communicating, arguing, living, eating, and joking with the guards, the most shocking thing I have heard from them is “why are you here? You’re not like they told us. You’re not like the others.” And when they tell you what the government said about us to them, it’s nothing but shocking lies. We are not just the worst of the worst; that’s the least of what they teach them before sending them to come and deal with us on a daily basis. No wonder they are scared to death when they come the first time. As soon as they start to understand, they move them somewhere else. Not because they are stressed, no — because they start to understand that their government has lied to them and that these people are decent.
Sleep deprivation
On a personal level nothing much has changed in the way that they treat me. In general, the camp rules are getting stricter every day. No days, no nights; it’s a circus. Recreation is until 02:00. Feeding happens all night. Noise. Fans – hot and cold. And all day long, 24 hours a day, I have a ringing in my ears. If this is not sleep deprivation then what is?
The guards’ stress
It’s not us who make the guards stressed — it’s the administration that keeps them working like donkeys and making them do so many stupid things. It’s very rare that major things happen. Usually things are smooth, but the guards complain to us sometimes that they can’t understand why the rules keep being changed all the time. They can’t keep up and then they get punished and lose money. A lot of the guards are losing their ranks because of silly things. Ask the guards why they are stressed and you’ll find it because of their Administration, not us. But they can’t talk to the media or lawyers. But the truth will prevail, no matter how long it takes. One day the world will know the truth. We just have to wait and see.
Animals
They don’t allow anyone to take food to recreation, so brothers try to sneak food for the cat and birds. If they get caught, they get disciplined. The other day I saw a vulture that looks like an eagle. It’s very huge. It landed behind my window eating bread and rice with the other small birds. I was really sad. A meat-eater eating rice and bread. We brothers still take risks and feed Princess (our female Camp 5 cat) and the birds.
Mr Obama has vowed again to close Guantanamo, and Mr Aamer is one of almost 80 detainees cleared for release. However, although there are no complicated issues about the UK’s human-rights record, his release is still held up.
Clive Stafford Smith, the director of the legal charity Reprieve, said Mr Aamer, 45, continues to be held because of concern he would give evidence against intelligence agents.
As one of the first prisoners held at Bagram air base, in Afghanistan, in 2001, Mr Aamer has told his lawyers and the Metropolitan Police that he was in the room when a detainee called Ibn Sheikh al-Libi was being abused in the presence of British intelligence officers.
Mr al-Libi said that Saddam Hussein was in league with al-Qaeda over weapons of mass destruction, bogus information cited by Mr Bush in the run-up to the Iraq war.
In public, Britain continues to call for Mr Aamer’s release after 12 years, and David Cameron raised the case with Mr Obama recently. However, according to Aamer’s lawyers, he has been offered release only to Saudi Arabia — five times — but not to London, where his wife and four children live and where he has indefinite leave to remain.
Mr Stafford Smith said: “Shaker is a witness to British complicity in a really devastatingly damaging torture story and there are people within the British intelligence establishment who don’t want him as a witness and would want him sent to Saudi Arabia.
“Of course, he can’t be a witness in any sort of criminal prosecution if he’s in Gitmo. We’ve now said that we don’t want him to be a witness. The honest truth is he doesn’t want to have anything to do with that, he just wants to come home to his family.”
The Times has obtained details of Mr Aamer’s recent communications with his legal team, in which he declares himself to be a hostage, appears distressed by lack of sleep, voices sympathy for the stress endured by his guards and, in an odd insight into life in Camp Five, tells how detainees smuggle food into the recreation yard to feed Princess, the camp’s cat.
The extracts, transcribed from telephone calls, letters and interviews with his lawyers are all from this year, and show his anxiety about the limbo he finds himself in as efforts to close the camp have become a political football.
In one extract, Mr Aamer says: “For how long must we do everything again and again and again. The same way, the same story, the same everything for the last 12 years. Nothing’s changed; everything’s getting worse in Gitmo.”
Loud and clear: I am a hostage
How long?
For how long must we do everything again and again and again. The same way, the same story, the same everything for the last 12 years. Nothing’s changed; everything’s getting worse in Gitmo. How much longer do you have to repeat the same song about what’s going on with us and what the US government is doing wrong. How long is it going to take the world to understand the words of the song?
Hostage
No more calling me detainee prisoner. I am a hostage loud and clear. Seven years after I have been cleared by two governments and dozens of government branches. They threatened to send me to Saudi Arabia five times, yet I am still here. After the British government claims it has done everything it can to bring me back, and I have no doubt that they can meet all the requirements of the US. Yet I am still here after all that. The British prime minister has personally asked for my release more than once, yet I’m still here. With all my health problems, I’m still in Gitmo. That’s why I’m a hostage, not a detainee or a prisoner or a free man.
The guards
If you ask any guard if he is happy he will tell you no. A fast ‘no’. And in the last 12 years of speaking, listening, educating, communicating, arguing, living, eating, and joking with the guards, the most shocking thing I have heard from them is “why are you here? You’re not like they told us. You’re not like the others.” And when they tell you what the government said about us to them, it’s nothing but shocking lies. We are not just the worst of the worst; that’s the least of what they teach them before sending them to come and deal with us on a daily basis. No wonder they are scared to death when they come the first time. As soon as they start to understand, they move them somewhere else. Not because they are stressed, no — because they start to understand that their government has lied to them and that these people are decent.
Sleep deprivation
On a personal level nothing much has changed in the way that they treat me. In general, the camp rules are getting stricter every day. No days, no nights; it’s a circus. Recreation is until 02:00. Feeding happens all night. Noise. Fans – hot and cold. And all day long, 24 hours a day, I have a ringing in my ears. If this is not sleep deprivation then what is?
The guards’ stress
It’s not us who make the guards stressed — it’s the administration that keeps them working like donkeys and making them do so many stupid things. It’s very rare that major things happen. Usually things are smooth, but the guards complain to us sometimes that they can’t understand why the rules keep being changed all the time. They can’t keep up and then they get punished and lose money. A lot of the guards are losing their ranks because of silly things. Ask the guards why they are stressed and you’ll find it because of their Administration, not us. But they can’t talk to the media or lawyers. But the truth will prevail, no matter how long it takes. One day the world will know the truth. We just have to wait and see.
Animals
They don’t allow anyone to take food to recreation, so brothers try to sneak food for the cat and birds. If they get caught, they get disciplined. The other day I saw a vulture that looks like an eagle. It’s very huge. It landed behind my window eating bread and rice with the other small birds. I was really sad. A meat-eater eating rice and bread. We brothers still take risks and feed Princess (our female Camp 5 cat) and the birds.
Deprivation
I force my hands and fingers to open again. I don’t know how old I am — max 90 years old. Despite all this I still try to do yoga every day and stretch and walk in my cell. I did not go out for recreation for more than 25 days when I was sitting in my cell. No clean clothes, no food, no cleaning products or detergent. There’s no medical care, just more talk about it. They tell us that the money budget’s been cut. Basically there are no supplies. I spoke to the supply guy — he’s a good kid. He is willing to help and to try hard to meet the brothers’ needs, but he has very little supplies
Talking in riddles
I will carry on talking normally, even though there is nothing normal about Gitmo since every time I tell you all the truth about this place in person or by phone I get a hard time back in my block. My basic items get taken away and I lose my recreation. So for when we meet everything I tell you about this place is the opposite and I will say good things about this place and how we are doing good here, so that when they hear this they leave me alone.
On being a hostage
They don’t want to release people because the public will see that these people are clearly not terrorists. They will ask “What? You held this guy for 12 years?” I am not a detainee — I am a hostage. I have been cleared two times — by a Republican government at the height of the war on terror and then by a Democratic government. Why am I still here? The UK has a great human rights record. So why am I still here? The US’s greatest ally is the UK. Our prime minister and the US president talk about me — so why am I still here? They are trying so hard to resettle some of the people here but I don’t need resettlement. I can go home to my family so why am I still here?
Source
I force my hands and fingers to open again. I don’t know how old I am — max 90 years old. Despite all this I still try to do yoga every day and stretch and walk in my cell. I did not go out for recreation for more than 25 days when I was sitting in my cell. No clean clothes, no food, no cleaning products or detergent. There’s no medical care, just more talk about it. They tell us that the money budget’s been cut. Basically there are no supplies. I spoke to the supply guy — he’s a good kid. He is willing to help and to try hard to meet the brothers’ needs, but he has very little supplies
Talking in riddles
I will carry on talking normally, even though there is nothing normal about Gitmo since every time I tell you all the truth about this place in person or by phone I get a hard time back in my block. My basic items get taken away and I lose my recreation. So for when we meet everything I tell you about this place is the opposite and I will say good things about this place and how we are doing good here, so that when they hear this they leave me alone.
On being a hostage
They don’t want to release people because the public will see that these people are clearly not terrorists. They will ask “What? You held this guy for 12 years?” I am not a detainee — I am a hostage. I have been cleared two times — by a Republican government at the height of the war on terror and then by a Democratic government. Why am I still here? The UK has a great human rights record. So why am I still here? The US’s greatest ally is the UK. Our prime minister and the US president talk about me — so why am I still here? They are trying so hard to resettle some of the people here but I don’t need resettlement. I can go home to my family so why am I still here?
Source
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