Saudi-Born Shaker Aamer, a British resident has been held in Guantánamo Bay for seven years.  His lawyers have claimed that any confessions he made were made while he was being tortured.  It turns out that on at least two of the occasions he was being tortured, British agents were present and refused to aide him.  Aamer is now seeking the release of the documents that prove this.

The British government believes that it is not in their best interest to release this information.  “It is fundamental to the national interest of the United Kingdom that our intelligence and security services are able to operate without fear of having to disclose secret intelligence material,” said a British government spokesman.

Aamer had been detained at the US-run detention center in Cuba since February 2002.  Before that he was held at Bagram airport in Afghanistan, following his capture by Afghan villagers in December 2001.  At Bagram he was subjected to torture during interrogations.  Aamer is a permanent British resident with a wife, who is a British National, and four children.

On one occasion at Bagram Aamer claims he was tortured by having his head slammed against a wall repeatedly, and at that time a British MI5 officer was present.

Fortunately, a London High Court has ruled in Aamer’s favor and the documents that the British MI5 and MI6 kept on these interrogations has been turned over to the US Board reviewing all of the Guantanamo Bay torture claims, headed by the Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney General.

Tags: Guantanamo Bay, torture

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at 8:29 pm and is filed under Current Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.