First Photos Published of Shaker Aamer Since His Release from Guantánamo

Radio: Andy Worthington Discusses the... A Photo and a Message from Shaker Aam...

First Photos Published of Shaker Aamer Since His Release from Guantánamo

This afternoon, the first photos appeared in the British media of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident held at Guantánamo, following his release from the prison on October 30. The photos appear to have been taken by paparazzi near his family home in London — and while I think it’s a pity that those close to Shaker didn’t issue a photo themselves, I’m delighted to see Shaker looking so well, just eleven days after his release.

The photo I’ve posted here was published on the website of the Daily Telegraph, and other photos were on the website of the Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror.

Unfortunately, although the photos show an evidently likeable person, and hint at the indomitable spirit that kept him going throughout his long ordeal in US custody, the text accompanying the photos was not always supportive — and the online comments, of course, are best avoided completely.

So the Telegraph, unfortunately, described how Shaker “was believed to be an al-Qaida recruiter,” and only later in its article added that “in 2007 the allegations against him were dropped and he was cleared for release.” The Telegraph also noted that he “is now expected to receive a £1 million compensation package from the UK taxpayer,” as though any wrongdoing by the UK government, for which compensation is secured, might come from a difference source — ministers’ own pockets, for example.

A similar tone was taken by the Sun, which noted that “he flew home on Friday October 30 aboard a taxpayer-funded private jet” — again, as if there was any other kind of government funding — and stated that “[t]he Americans believed Aamer was an al-Qaeda recruiter with ties to Osama bin Laden,” although they added that he “has always protested his innocence — claiming to have only been carrying out charity work.”

The Mail, which vigorously backed the campaign for his release, was more generous in its coverage, although it was noted, not for the first time, that the flight back to the UK from Guantánamo “is thought to have cost an estimated £70,000.” The Mail also wrote that Shaker “is now believed to be in line for a £1m payout from the government,” adding that this is part of a “compensation deal” that “was agreed in 2010 between the British Government and lawyers representing Guantánamo detainees following legal action.”

The Mail also repeated the description of Shaker in US military files “as a ‘close associate of Osama Bin Laden’, who fought in the battle of Tora Bora in Afghanistan,” noting that he “insists he was working for a charity in Afghanistan when he was kidnapped and handed to US forces in 2001,” but unfortunately even the Mail failed to do the research required to demonstrate, as I explained in my article “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Truth, Lies and Distortions in the Coverage of Shaker Aamer, Soon to be Freed from Guantánamo,” that the allegations against Shaker were made by notoriously unreliable witnesses.

The Mirror, meanwhile, described how Shaker spent “14 years locked up in the brutal American prison in Cuba,” and stated that, although the US “believed Aamer was an al-Qaeda recruiter with ties to Osama bin Laden,” they “never charged him with an offence and there was some doubt over his arrest.”

In conclusion, then, although I was very pleased to see Shaker, and in such a natural, normal environment, just walking in the street, I look forward to hearing from him, in his own words, very soon.

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).