Shaker Aamer

Shaker Abd al-Rahim Muhammad Aamer (born 21 December 1966) is a Saudi citizen who was held by the United States in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba for more than thirteen years without charge.

Aamer was born on 21 December 1966 and grew up in Medina in Saudi Arabia.

He left the country at the age of 17.

He lived and traveled in the United States, Europe and the Middle East.

Aamer lived and studied in Georgia and Maryland in 1989 and 1990.

During the Gulf War, he worked as a translator for the U.S. Army.

He moved to the United Kingdom in 1996 where he met Zin Siddique, a British woman; they married in 1997 and he established legal residency in Britain.

They have four British children, the youngest of whom Aamer had never met, due to his having been born after Aamer's imprisonment.

Aamer had indefinite leave to remain in the UK, and was applying for British citizenship.

Aamer worked as an Arabic translator for London law firms.

Some of the solicitors he worked for dealt with immigration cases.

In his spare time, Aamer helped refugees find accommodation and offered them advice on their struggles with the Home Office.

Aamer was seized in Afghanistan by bounty hunters, who handed him over to US forces in December 2001 during the United States military operation in the country.

Two months later, the US rendered Aamer to the Guantánamo camp; he was held there without trial or charge.

Aamer had been a legal resident in Britain for years before his imprisonment; the UK government repeatedly demanded his release, and many people there called for him to be released.

According to documents published in the Guantanamo Bay files leak, the US military Joint Task Force Guantanamo believed that Aamer had led a unit of fighters in Afghanistan, including the Battle of Tora Bora, while his family was paid a stipend by Osama bin Laden.

The file asserts past associations with Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui.

Aamer denies being involved in terrorist activity and his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, said the leaked documents would not stand up in court.

He claimed that part of the evidence came from an unreliable witness and that confessions Aamer made had been obtained through torture.

Aamer's father-in-law, Saaed Ahmed Siddique, said: "All of these claims have no basis. If any of this was true he would be in a court now."

The Bush administration acknowledged later that it had no evidence against Aamer.

Aamer has never been charged with any wrongdoing, was never on trial, and his lawyer says he is "totally innocent."

Aamer took his family to Afghanistan in 2001, where he was working for an Islamic charity when the U.S. invaded the country later that year.

The Northern Alliance took him into custody in Jalalabad in December 2001, and passed him to the Americans.

The US routinely paid ransom for Arabs handed over to them.

They interrogated Aamer at Bagram Theater Internment Facility and transported him to Guantanamo on 14 February 2002.

He was approved for transfer to Saudi Arabia by the Bush administration in 2007 and the Obama administration in 2009.

He has been described as a "charismatic leader" who spoke up and fought for the rights of fellow prisoners.

Aamer alleges that he has been subject to torture while in detention.

Aamer has suffered decline in his mental and physical health over the years, as he participated in hunger strikes to protest his detention conditions, and was held in solitary confinement for much of the time.

He claims to have lost 40 per cent of his body weight in captivity.

According to Joint Task Force Guantanamo assessments from 1 November 2007, the US military believed that Aamer was a "recruiter, financier, and facilitator" for al-Qaeda, based partly on evidence given by the informant Yasim Muhammed Basardah, a fellow detainee.

The leaked documents alleged that Aamer had confessed to interrogators that he was in Tora Bora with Osama bin Laden at the time of the US bombing.

After a visit in November 2011, his lawyer said, "I do not think it is stretching matters to say that he is gradually dying in Guantanamo Bay."

Saeed Siddique, Aamer's father-in-law, said in 2011, "When he was captured, Shaker offered to let my daughter divorce him, but she said, 'No, I will wait for you.' She is still waiting."

In 2012, Aamer's family lived in Battersea, South London.

His wife Zin Aamer suffered from depression and mental episodes after his arrest.

In 2015, despite Aamer's deteriorating health, the US denied a request for an independent medical examination.

In February 2015, 3 pupils from Kenilworth School, Warwickshire, Alex Brown, Thomas Edwards and Gareth Evans sent a letter requesting the release of Aamer to Jeremy Wright MP, which many believe was the start of helping Aamer being released and returned to the UK.

Aamer, the last British resident to be held at Guantanamo Bay, was released to the United Kingdom on 30 October 2015.