Keep Up the Fast For Shaker Aamer, As Foreign Office and State Department Say Release Delayed Until Late This Week or Early Next Week

Photos: Shaker Aamer’s 5000th Day in ... Finally, President Obama Vetoes Defen...

Keep Up the Fast For Shaker Aamer, As Foreign Office and State Department Say Release Delayed Until Late This Week or Early Next Week

After all the expectation that Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, would be returned to the UK on Sunday, at the end of the 30-day notification period required by Congress (following the announcement on September 25 that he would be freed), it has been disappointing few days, with only rumours and vague reassurances to indicate that his release is imminent.

Today, for example, the Daily Mail reported that Shaker “is expected to return to the UK within days” — adding that he is “due to leave the infamous camp later this week or early next according to sources in the UK and US.”

A source in Whitehall told the Mail, “He will be out within days. We’re working on the practical details of how it will happen.”

In addition, a senior official in the US State Department said, “Shaker is coming home and it will be in the near term. The delay past the 30-day mark is due to logistical arrangements. We cannot release the exact date he will be released due to security concerns. Shaker will be coming home.”

The Mail also noted the claims, aired widely yesterday, that Shaker’s release “was delayed to appease” three Republican Senators visiting the prison, who were said to be on a “fact-finding” mission. Today came further rumours that Shaker’s release is being delayed because of the media visiting for the latest pre-trial hearings relating to the proposed trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other men accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks.

Clive Stafford Smith, the founder of Reprieve, and one of Shaker’s lawyers, said, “Sadly, as we have said all along, it looks like those who don’t want Shaker released are dragging their feet. We want to thank all those who have been committed to helping Shaker, but we must all continue to press the authorities on both sides of the Atlantic to do as they promised.”

Clive added, “Surely 14 years of abuse is enough — every additional day is an additional insult to justice. He has to come home now, and his family must be put out of their eternal misery.”

Downing Street refused to make an official comment on Shaker’s delayed release, but David Cameron’s spokesman said, “We have been working with the US to make sure the case is dealt with as quickly as possible.”

In the afternoon I went to a meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Shaker Aamer, attended by six MPs, including co-chairs John McDonnell and David Davis, and vice-chairs Andrew Mitchell and Andy Slaughter. The APPG will be issuing a statement tomorrow morning, but in the meantime I spoke to the Wandsworth Guardian, who asked for a statement.

I said, as the co-director of We Stand with Shaker and Fast for Shaker, “While we are delighted to hear of Shaker Aamer’s impending release, we remain cautious until his plane has touched down on UK soil and he is reunited with his family. There have been too many false promises over the years, since he was approved for release in 2007, under George W. Bush, and again under Barack Obama in January 2010.”

I added, “We are encouraging supporters to continue the Fast For Shaker that we started on October 15 until Shaker is back in the UK. Over 400 people, including celebrities, MPs and concerned citizens around the world, have been fasting for 24 hours in solidarity with Shaker since that date. It is time that his long and completely unjustifiable ordeal is finally over.”

Note: Thanks to Benedick Tranchell for the posters held by The Four Fathers at the top of this article. Check out ‘Song for Shaker Aamer‘ on Bandcamp (where you can also buy it as a download), as featured on the album ‘Love and War.’

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer, film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose debut album, ‘Love and War,’ is available for download or on CD via Bandcamp — also see here). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign, the co-director of We Stand With Shaker, calling for the immediate release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by the University of Chicago Press in the US, and available from Amazon, including a Kindle edition — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here — or here for the US).