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After thirteen years held without charges at the offshore U.S. prison at Guantanamo, 48-year-old British citizen Shaker Aamer was put on a private jet just after midnight on Friday and sent back to the UK.

According to reporting by Carol Rosenberg at the Miami Herald:

[Aamer] was one of Guantánamo's best known prisoners because some Britons, including his wife and four children living in London, turned his case into a cause célèbre. In May, a bipartisan delegation of British members of parliament stumped for his release in meetings with Obama administration officials as well as members of Congress.

The transfer left 112 detainees at the Pentagon prison, 52 of them approved for transfer to other countries.

The transfer, the second release from the prison in 42 hours, left the detention center population at 112 captives. Of them, 52 are like Aamer was on the eve of his flight off this remote U.S. Navy base: Approved for release with security arrangements that satisfy Secretary of Defense Ash Carter.

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One day, when former "detainees" like Mr. Shaker commit to putting their experiences down on paper, their stories will read like modern versions of the 19th century slave narrative. So many people in the Empire's gulags are folk who were swept up in the madness of war, and then kept prisoner for no other reason than they were "military-age" Muslim men, who came into the purview of invading American forces. Even if these people were under arms, resisting the American invaders, this does not make them "unlawful combatants." How does the invading army in an illegal war get to describe those who resist as "unlawful" belligerents? I never accepted the framing of the Guantanamo detention policy as the only way of dealing with the "worst of the worst." Guantanamo operates beyond any real measure of law; the US government is more or less unaccountable there. Guantanamo is a concentration-camp, analogous to a Stalinist prison. Many people have died there. Even the criminal US government admits that innocent people are being held there--some have been there for over a decade. This is nothing other than a policy of enslaving a certain class of people, who are stripped of all protections of the law. Guantanamo is a crime against humanity.

The facile "debate" that "detainees" must be held at Guantanamo because it is too dangerous to imprison them in the United States disguises the bigger question: by what right does the United States hold territory in a foreign country? Guantanamo is a crime against the Cuban people.

If we arrive at the day that Muslim people are rounded up and killed in the name of "national security," Guantanamo will be seen as a crucial part of the process of softening up the American people (both morally and politically) so that they are prepared to accept another holocaust. Some people will say that a genocide of Muslims will never happen, but these people are blind to reality: in some respects, it is already happening, as so many Muslim countries are literally falling apart, and nobody knows with any certainty what the future holds. I'm sure if you were alive in 1930, you never would have thought that Auschwitz was looming up ahead....

a lot of the inmates went on to commit acts of terrorism after being released, i have mixed feelings about this

His life is ruined, but so were the lives of the victims and families of 9/11. Guantanamo is a disgrace. We could have dealt with these people in a lawful way, dispensing justice without putting such a stain on our national honor

lost 13 years of his life. will the government pay for that?

When it comes to a guy as awful and destructive as Osama bin Laden there's only one way to beat him and it involves making everyone he has contact with an enemy by association - an accessory.

His life doesn't  have to be ruined.  He has life. He can move on. Hopefully he doesn't become a life long  hater and  terrorist of the US.


Why would the government do that? That money would be better spent on the families that lost people in ANY terrorist attack.

lost 13 years of his life. will the government pay for that?

Shaker Aamer traveled to Afghanistan to join the Taliban / Al Qaeda. Although there is no concrete evidence of any war crimes committed by him, we can safely assume that he fought among the radical Islamists for many months, before his eventual capture by the Northern Alliance. He is quite lucky to be alive now. Had the Russians captured him, then they would have cut off his balls...

a lot are killed when they assumed something. but why free him now? just shoot him instead, bury him deep that no knows, tell every one he just disappear so the government won't be blamed for wasting 13 years of the man's life.

He probably thought that he was signing up with the United States since it was the U.S. who brought Al Qaeda into existence in the first place. :)

Allies can become enemies in a matter of few months. Until 1992, the Americans were supporting the Taliban / Al Qaeda, helping them with weapons, and even transporting foreign mercenaries from Saudi Arabia and Egypt to Afghanistan. Even in the late 90s, when Taliban was fighting against the Northern Alliance, the Americans were inclined to support the former, as the Northern Alliance was believed to be pro-Russian.

Shaker Aamer traveled to Afghanistan to join the Taliban / Al Qaeda. Although there is no concrete evidence of any war crimes committed by him, we can safely assume that he fought among the radical Islamists for many months, before his eventual capture by the Northern Alliance. He is quite lucky to be alive now. Had the Russians captured him, then they would have cut off his balls...

Not just concrete evidence. There is no evidence for any of that. The bush administration admitted that. That is what happens when prisoners are tortured for information. They lie. And what happens when americans pay ransom for prisoners. The northern alliance is paid for some people they capture. How many did they get rid for their own reasons?

Are you claiming that this guy was innocent and was framed by the Northern Alliance? If so, what was he doing in Afghanistan? He is originally from Saudi Arabia and later received the British passport. He had no family/work connections to Afghanistan, and at that time even schoolchildren knew that traveling to that country was risky.

Are you claiming that this guy was innocent and was framed by the Northern Alliance? If so, what was he doing in Afghanistan? He is originally from Saudi Arabia and later received the British passport. He had no family/work connections to Afghanistan, and at that time even schoolchildren knew that traveling to that country was risky.