A Saudi who emerged as a defiant leader among prisoners during nearly 14 years of confinement on the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba has been released to join his family in Britain.
The release of Shaker Aamer comes after a campaign and at the request of Prime Minister David Cameron, who had urged U.S. President Barack Obama to resolve the case of the last prisoner at Guantanamo with significant ties to Britain.
“He needs, first, to be in a hospital, and then to be with his family,” said Clive Stafford Smith, one of his lawyers.
Aamer (48) had told his lawyers that he would seek a medical examination in Britain because of concerns about his health stemming in part from repeated hunger strikes while at Guantanamo.
Aamer was born in Saudi Arabia and remains a citizen, but wanted to return to London where he has four children, including a son he has never seen and a wife, who is the daughter of a prominent retired imam. Aamer worked as a translator for a law firm in London from 1994 to 2001.
The U.S. Defense Department has disclosed that he was accused of significant links to terrorism. They said he shared an apartment in the late 1990s with Zacarias Moussaoui, who was convicted of taking part in the Sept. 11 conspiracy; had met with Richard Reid, who tried to blow up a U.S. passenger jet with explosives in his shoes; had undergone al-Qaeda training in the use of explosives and missiles, and received a stipend from Osama bin Laden.
Those allegations and more were later found in a November 2007 detainee assessment obtained and published by Wikileaks that described him as a member of al-Qaeda and a “close associate” of bin Laden.
The U.S. never charged him with a crime.
Aamer and his supporters have denied the allegations, and Smith notes that Aamer had been cleared for release by the administration of President George W. Bush in June 2007.
Aamer spent much of his time at Guantanamo in the disciplinary units of Camp 5, a section of the detention center where prisoners are held alone in solid-walled cells of steel and concrete.
