UK's last Guantánamo Bay prisoner in custody without allegation after a decade

UK’s last Guantánamo Bay detainee is still in anticipation of trial after ten years at the contentious military camp, his lawyers have said on the 10th anniversary of the imprisonment facility.

Shaker Aamer UK’s national, was freed for release in 2007, but is still being arrested at Guantánamo Bay.

He has never met his adolescent son and he may expire before any allegations are forced, his lawyer Clive Stafford Smith said after an unusual visit to his client in November.

“This is a man who has used up a decade in US confinement and been abused as dreadfully as anyone in Guantánamo. It would take a massive charge on anyone. He is a person who is steadily falling apart at the seams,” Mr Stafford Smith told the Independent newspaper.

“He could pass away in there … not many would get one decade in jail for a murder they did commit, let alone 10 years in jail without any indictment,” he added.

The newspaper also said that the British government had consumed £274,345 fighting Mr. Aamer in court, somewhat in a bid to put off evidence being appeared by his lawyers – evidence his lawyers said would show Mr. Aamer’s virtue.

David Remes, another of Mr. Aamer’s lawyers, also stated the Briton was being kept at an consequences facility, called Camp Echo, where prisoners are subject to “inhumane” treatment in breach of Geneva Conventions. 

 

The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s spokesman said Mr. Aamer’s case had been moved up again with Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, but his discharge was the evaluation of US authorities.

Another man, ex prisoner Moazzam Begg, 43 was discharged from Guantánamo Bay after two years at the camp. No allegations were ever made.