Guantanamo Briton Shaker Aamer Relives His 14-Year Nightmare of Savage Abuse _ Daily Mail Online

7/25/2019 Guantanamo Briton Shaker Aamer Relives His 14-Year Nightmare of Savage Abuse _ Daily Mail Online

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EXCLUSIVE: GuantanamoBriton Shaker Aamer relives

his 14-year nightmare of savage abuse - includingagony of being 'hog-tied' for

45 minutes at a time - andthe joy of finally seeing hisfamily again

Britain Shaker Aamer, 48, was held atGuantanamo Bay for 14 years

He's given a series of world exclusiveinterviews, the first since his release

He recreates being 'hog-tied' and recalled beingin agony for 90 seconds

Aamer answers a series of questions about

accusations he faces nowBy DAVID ROSE FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY

PUBLISHED: 22:27 GMT, 12 December 2015 | UPDATED: 18:08 GMT, 17

December 2015

It began as it always did: with the sound of the approach of the Forcible Cell Extraction team, theringing jackboot stomp of six soldiers, marching in unison across the floor of the cell block. ‘You feelscared,’ says Aamer.

‘You know you can get hurt, because there are some huge guys there, 18, 20 stone guys, muscular.You could be paralysed. Anything can happen. Anything.’

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When they opened the cell door, he was sitting on his bed. ‘The watch commander screamed: “239[Aamer’s Guantanamo number] get down on your face, do not resist!” But, as usual, I was not going tolie down, because the cell is so small that if you lay face down, you stick your face in the hole which isthe toilet.’

Torture: Shaker Aamer recreates being 'hog-tied', a position in which he was bound for 45 minutes at a time

Using their shields, the FCE forced him to the ground anyway. ‘It’s like a train hitting you. You arealready breathing hard and they are on top of you. They lift you up and press their shields against youso your body is like the meat in a sandwich.’

Meanwhile, they were screaming. ‘They only shout one thing, “Stop resisting”. I was not resisting at all – how could I?’

Bizarrely, the whole incident was being filmed, because the camp has to provide a ‘combatcameraman’ for all FCE actions. ‘It’s “combat”, because to them, this is a war – the cameraman isgoing to war,’ Aamer says. ‘All the time they are shouting for the camera’s benefit, “Stop resisting, 239,stop resisting”.’

They dragged him out of the cell, and flipped him backwards and forwards on the dirty corridor floor,

searching him under his clothing. Finally they released him, and, bruised and battered, he was lockedagain in his cell.

What had triggered this incident? Had he been found with illegal contraband, perhaps even a weapon?

By no means. All this was for an apple stem: ‘Before I was in Guantanamo, I always carried atoothpick. They wouldn’t let me have one, so I thought, I’ll keep the stem of an apple, and use that.’

On the day of this FCE attack, the inmates had been given apples with their dinner, and afterwards, aguard asked Aamer to give his stem back. ‘It was in my mouth. I refused. I said I need it to pick myteeth. But apparently, this apple stem was going to affect the system. It cannot be allowed.’

Yet despite the FCE’s violence, they failed in their ‘mission’. As the team was walking away, ‘I called tothem through the hatch: “Come on, why didn’t you take it?”’

He demonstrates what he did next: he stuck out his tongue, so that everyone could see the apple stemwas still there.

In the almost 14 years Aamer spent at Guantanamo, he was a victim of the FCE many hundreds of times – he says that in one year, 2012, he was ‘FCE’d’ 370 times, more than once a day. The last time

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Mugshot: Shaker Aamer in the orange jumpsuit

was just two months before his release, becausehe refused to give four vials of blood, demanded onthe spurious grounds that the authorities werechecking inmates for tuberculosis.

Guantanamo, he says, ‘has been built for onepurpose – to destroy human beings. There actuallyused to be a sign on a wall that said “RodeoRange”. A rodeo is where you break horses. There

you are trying to break human beings, you aretrying to make them like horses.’

What makes Aamer remarkable is his consistent refusal, year after year, to give in to this pressure – totry to maintain some semblance of control over his life, even if this amounted to nothing more thankeeping an apple stem to pick his teeth. His defiance, he admits, probably delayed his release. It wasalso how he survived, and clung to his sanity.

Aamer was in Guantanamo for so long that it isimpossible to provide a complete narrative. Thenagain, ‘There is no such thing as Guantanamo inthe past or Guantanamo in the future. There is notime, because there is still no limit to what they cando. What they did ten, twelve years ago, they cando it today. Who is going to stop them?’ True, thenumber of inmates has declined – from a peak of more than 700, to about 100 today.

But the only thing that has really changed are the buildings: the early, open cages, known as Camp X-Ray, have been replaced by an array of concrete blocks.

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Dragged and battered...all for an apple stem

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Humiliation: Notorious image of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, where Aamer was held for 14 years, in 2002

U.S. military guards walk within Camp Delta military-run prison, at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base

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Camp 6 – where he spent only a few days – is for highly ‘compliant’ prisoners, who are allowed out of their cells for ten hours a day, to eat together and play sports. Camp 5 is much more Spartan: there,inmates spend 23 hours a day locked up, taking bland, tasteless meals in Styrofoam ‘clam shells’, with

just an hour for a shower and outdoor recreation. Aamer says that for him, one of the most unbearableaspects of Guantanamo was that Camp 5 was close to the soldiers’ kitchen, from which he inhaled thedelicious smell of barbecued meat three times a week, yet was never given it.

Finally, there is Camp Echo, the isolation wing, where he spent many months in solitary confinement.Sometimes he had access to books: one his favourites was George Orwell’s novel about torture and

dictatorship, 1984. At other times, he was deprived even of this: weeks and months when the daysbecame a sterile, meaningless blur.

There were also interrogations – ‘appointments’ as they were called. Aamer says that over the years,he had about 200 interrogators, all repeating the same questions he’d already been asked in

Afghanistan, along with allegations about his supposed – and hotly denied – recruitment for jihadigroups in London.

Back home: Shaker Aamer, 48, finally arrived back in London last week after 14 years at Guantanamo Bay

Often appointments were accompanied by torture: sleep deprivation; being left shackled to the floor ina room colder than freezing point, for up to 36 hours at a time; being bombarded with continuous,deafening rock music. ‘The cold temperatures: my God, that was terrible.

‘They just leave you, tied to a ring in the floor: sometimes the interrogator doesn’t even come. Youshout, you bang, you scream. They don’t let you go to the toilet: if you need it, you go on yourself. Andnobody bothers about you, that’s it.’

In the spring of 2005, he decided he’d had enough:‘I just stopped talking to the interrogators. I refusedto answer any more questions.’ Afterwards came apivotal event in Guantanamo’s history – its firstmass hunger strike, which, extraordinarily, was ledby Aamer, though he had been in solitary for

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Deprived of sleep in afreezing room for 36hrs



months.

Using a fork to scratch away the glue around his cell window, he broke the soundproof seal, allowinghim to shout to prisoners in the recreation area outside: ‘I called out, “Who is outside?” and then wetransfer information.’

The news spread from corridor to corridor, and then, inadvertently, the authorities gave Aamer achance to disseminate it further. One technique to deprive prisoners of sleep was the ‘frequent flyer’,moving them from cell to cell in the space of a few days or hours. This time, when they used it on

Aamer, it allowed him to contact more inmates.

SHAKER AAMER RECREATES BEING 'HOG-TIED' FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY

One of the worst tortures Shaker Aamer endured at American hands while he was being held atBagram air base in Afghanistan was to be ‘hog-tied’ – left trussed up on the floor face down, bentbackwards into the shape of a bow, with ankles and wrists tied together.

Last week, in a lawyer’s office in Camden Town, North London, he demonstrated it for The Mail onSunday. ‘It is amazing – a lot of people don’t understand this mechanism. It is very horrible, let meshow it to you,’ he said, getting up from his chair to lie on the carpeted floor. His legs and wristswould already be tied together, he explained, ‘and they bring your legs up all the way and tie themclose to your arms’.

But his torturers added an exquisite refinement: a further, very tight tie threaded around each bicep,used to bind his upper arms closely together. That meant that if he tried to relax, by letting his chestsink to the floor, the blood supply to his arms was cut off, causing excruciating pain: ‘It kills you, man.You cry, the pain is so bad.’

Aamer said he was in agony for 45 seconds and was bound for 45 minutes at a time when he was 'hog-tied'

The only way to avoid this agony was to raise his head, neck and chest, deepening the concave bowmade by his spine. But in just a few minutes, this too became excruciating. Shaker said: ‘It digs intoyour wrists. It cuts the blood in your hands, it cuts the blood in your feet and everything.’

He still suffers severe back pain as a result of this treatment. At Shaker’s urging, this newspaper’sreporter tried to adopt the position he had demonstrated. In just seconds, I experienced a stab of painas my left thigh went into a cramp. I tried to hold the position a few moments longer, but the pain inmy lower back was becoming unendurable.

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Pride: With children Johaina and Michael

‘They did that to me twice, once for almost an hour,’ Shaker said. ‘They were kicking me at the sametime. I thought I was going to lose my legs.’

‘I remember the day my weight dropped below nine stone, when I’d been on hunger strike for almosttwo months,’ Aamer says. ‘For days, I’d also refused water. I was less than half the size I had beenwhen I was taken prisoner. I saw myself in the mirror. I started laughing, because I was so skinny.Then I remembered my wife, Zin, and I was crying at the same time. I saw her in front me, falling downand dying because of the way I looked: nothing but bones.

‘They took me to the hospital and put me in a wheelchair, because I couldn’t walk. They wanted to giveme a “banana bag”: intravenous fluid with potassium and glucose. Seven times the nurse tried to giveme an I/V, but he couldn’t find a vein. He said, “this guy has to drink water, he is so dehydrated wecannot stick a needle in him.”

‘The colonel, Mike Bumgarner, came. He goes, “come on, Shaker, please don’t do this to me. Take abottle of water.” I said OK, and I drank.’

The date is engraved in Aamer’s memory: July 27,2005. It was the closest he had come to death. Butit was also a turning point. Fearful the strike wouldbecome unmanageable, Bumgarner negotiated

with Aamer, who then took charge of what becameknown as ‘the Shaker government’ – a committeeof six prisoners who were allowed to move,handcuffed and under escort, throughout thecamps.

The idea was to sound out opinion, to look for waysto ease the tension in ways acceptable to both theauthorities and inmates. ‘I was trying to get them toagree to fulfil the Geneva Convention,’ Aamer says.

That proved impossible, and on August 8, theexperiment ended – with Aamer back in solitary.Meanwhile, he says, he had made a surprisingdiscovery. It was already known that someprisoners were being given exceptional privilegesfor ‘snitching’ on other inmates, such as trips to the‘Love Shack’, where they would be givenhamburgers and shown pornographic videos.Indeed, Aamer says that his interrogators madethree futile attempts to recruit him.

He says: ‘We had heard rumours that there weredetainees who were paid to infiltrate Guantanamo.These guys were doing a job. One is to infiltrate.Two is to spy, to hear. Three is to cause issuesbetween the brothers. Four, to report of any kind of grouping.’

After the hunger strike, he came to believe they must be true. ‘I had cruised around the camps and Ihad counted everybody. I went into every camp, and I knew how many cells there were in each one.’

At this time, Guantanamo’s official prisoner total was 530. According to Aamer, there were dozensmore – all of them, he presumes, what he calls ‘hired prisoners’.

This newspaper put these claims to Guantanamo’s spokesman, Lt Col Mike Meredith.

He said only: ‘For security reasons, we don’t go into detailed discussions of camp operations.

However, our mission is the safe, humane, legal, and transparent custody of detainees.’

ANSWERS TO ACCUSATIONS SHAKER AAMER FACES EVEN NOW

Q: Shaker Aamer was held for 14 years on suspicion of being involved in terrorism. Did the US find any evidence of this?

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A: No. The US never charged him with a crime, and twice cleared him as posing no security risk. Thefirst time was in June 2007 by a Guantanamo tribunal at which all six of the main US intelligenceagencies endorsed his release. A similar decision was reached by a panel set up under PresidentObama in 2009.

Q: But why did he go to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan in 2001, two months before 9/11? Surely that was suspicious?

A: Aamer insists that all he was doing was trying to make a better life for his family where food and

property were cheap. In the six years he’d been in Britain, he found things tough financially, and hewas determined not to rely on benefits. By July 2001, the Afghan civil war was ending, with foreigninvestment coming in. He hoped to get grants and contracts for water projects and a co-educationalschool. Of course, he couldn’t have known what lay ahead.

Q: If he’s so innocent, why was he captured and sent to Guantanamo?

A: Research has shown that more than 80 per cent of the 770 prisoners who have been held atGuantanamo were ‘sold’ to the Americans by Afghan bounty-hunters, after the US military droppedleaflets promising big rewards for supposed terrorists – especially for Arabs like Aamer. Most havelong been freed.

Q: But isn’t there some secret report that says he was a dangerous terrorist after all?

A: The remaining allegations stem from one source, an intelligence document published byWikiLeaks, dated November 2007, five months after he was cleared. This compiled claims made byother detainees against him. The US Department of Justice stated such claims are ‘most oftencompletely bogus’, because they come from prisoners looking to get privileges by lying about their peers.

Q: But has anyone examined these claims officially?

A: Their authors have been considered in several US court cases, where successive judges havedismissed them as self-serving liars. One of them, Muhammad Basardah, accused no fewer than 200detainees, after being given access to privileges at Guantanamo. One judge called him ‘unreliableand unbelievable’ – as are his bogus claims that Aamer knew Osama bin Laden, and fought with himat Tora Bora.

Q: What about the claim that Aamer belonged to an Al Qaeda cell in London?

A: This came from another detainee, Abdul Bukhary, described by a judge as a serial liar. The former head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, has said there’s ‘no case’ that Aamer was involved in UK terrorism.

After the end of the Shaker government came Aamer’s longest period in solitary – almost two years.Eighteen months after he came out, there was a new, Democratic administration, led by PresidentBarack Obama. Just as its Republican predecessors had done in 2007, it set up a panel of senior intelligence officers. In 2009, it cleared Aamer for release.

That year, Briton Binyam Mohamed was freed. ‘I was supposed to be on that aeroplane,’ Aamer says,

sadly. Instead, an officer said he might be sent to Saudi Arabia. He says he was ready to agree,provided his wife and children could join him, but as soon as he raised this issue, the offer waswithdrawn.

In Britain, demands to free him were gathering strength.

In their regular visits to him, Aamer’s lawyers, led by Clive Stafford Smith of the human rights charityReprieve, were able to tell him of the support he was getting from this newspaper and others, includinghis local Conservative MP, Jane Ellison, and from the ‘I Stand With Shaker’ campaign.

His morale, he says, was ‘like a candle’, that could have blown out. ‘You guys protected it. All thosewho fought for justice for me, who joined in those protests – I can never thank you enough.’

Even to the end, Guantanamo stuck to its protocols. Aamer’s last argument with a guard came just an

hour before he left the camp, when he was told he could not shout goodbyes to other inmates.

When he got on the bus that was to take him to the ferry across Guantanamo Bay, the way to theairport, it had blacked-out windows. Going straight to the jetty would have taken five minutes, but hewas driven around in circles for two hours, apparently so he would not get an impression of the camp’slayout – even though this has been visible on Google Earth for years.



But at last, his ordeal was ending. In the middle of the hot, Cuban night, he stood on the airstriptarmac, his hands bound with plastic cuffs. ‘I think I am the only detainee for whom the colonel himself,David Heath, came and cut the cuffs off my hands.

‘He looked at me and said, “You are a free man”. That was a beautiful moment.’

Joy I dreamed of for 14 years: From hell to ecstatic

reunion - in the biggest interview of the yearThe private Gulfstream jet from Guantanamo Bay crossed the British coastline shortly after noon onOctober 30. Inside, Shaker Aamer – still dressed in his prison garb – was attempting to comprehendtwo utterly extraordinary truths: that he really was about to set foot in England a free man… and thatwithin hours he would be seeing, and embracing, his family for the first time in 14 years.

Even now, he couldn’t be sure he was almost home.

‘I was in the aeroplane, talking to a policeman and someone from the Home Office,’ he told The Mailon Sunday during the course of an extraordinary series of interviews – his first and only since hisarrival back in Britain. ‘But still there, in the back of my mind, I was wondering: is it really true, is itreally going to be England, am I really going to be meeting my family?’

He still feared ‘that small percentage of possibility that it could have been a trick – it could be Saudi Arabia, it could be anywhere’. He was, after all, used to disappointment. He was still reflexively tryingto protect himself: ‘Just in case. I didn’t want to be shocked, I didn’t want to be surprised.’

'Finally living': Aamer, pictured with his sons, says he faces difficulties building relationships with hischildren

But as the plane dropped through the cloud and descended towards Biggin Hill Airport, and he gazedthrough the window at an unmistakeably English landscape of green chalk downs and autumnalwoods, he felt confident. ‘We landed and at last I was sure: I saw England. And I thought, my God. I

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really am back.’

As the door opened and he stood on the threshold, he was struck by the deliciously cool and dampEnglish air: weather very different to the tropical heat of Guantanamo. ‘As soon as they opened it, Isaid to the Met officer next to me: “That is my first breath of freedom.” Everything looked British. I wasoverwhelmed.’

His emotions were in turmoil. Although he had known for several weeks he was finally set for release,he hadn’t been told when he would leave Guantanamo. When the day finally came, he was given justan hour to take a shower, gather his meagre possessions and prepare for the journey ahead.

‘I walked down the steps, and I was just so happy, because I knew I really was free. Yet I also feltapprehensive. I was worried that they might take me somewhere to ask me questions. But the HomeOffice guy who had come to meet me had this huge smile on his face. Everybody was telling me,“welcome back”, the officials, the one who came with the fingerprint stuff, they were actually happy tosee me… they had tears in their eyes.’

But that was as nothing compared to the emotion of what he knew lay ahead: to be able to gaze onceagain upon the faces of his wife and family, and to hug and hold them. Terrified of getting it wrong, of saying or doing something that would cast a shadow over their future relationships, he choreographedtheir reunion with care.

That evening, after an exhaustive medical check-up, he was finally re-united with his wife, Zinneera –

though not yet his children – in the privacy of a friend’s London apartment, so no one would knowwhere they were. ‘At last that moment I’d dreamt of came and she came through the door. That instantwashed away the pain of 14 years. It washed away the tiredness, the agony, the stress. It was like it nolonger existed. I hugged her, she hugged me, and we just wept.

‘I stayed with her that night and we couldn’t sleep actually, we were just talking and talking. I wasscared to meet the kids at first: I told her, I just wanted to be with her because I needed to know whothese kids are – I can’t just see them, I don’t want to do something that will make them fear me. So Isaw Zin only.

‘She reassured me. She said, “Don’t worry, they are very strong kids, they are very beautiful kids.” Iasked her about who they are, how they feel, how they do things, and we kept talking about them allthe next day, morning till night. And then, in the evening, they came.’

BRIBED WITH HIS KIDS' PHOTOGRAPHS...FOR CONFESSION

Any long-term prisoner with a wife and family will find separation painful. But for Shaker Aamer, thedeep isolation of fortress Guantanamo made this agony far worse.

All forms of intimate communication were impossible in the jail. The rare letters the authoritiesallowed were censored and strictly monitored.

Aamer’s wife Zinneera sent him family photos, only for his interrogators to use them as a weapon:‘They refused to give me my kids’ pictures for years, but they put them on the walls in theinterrogation room. Imagine if you did not see your kids for four or five years, and then one day theytake you in for interrogation.

‘I go inside and I see pictures all over the wall, big pictures, small pictures, everywhere. I will notforget that day, because I left them when they were little kids, and I could see they had grown up.They wanted to break me down, and they told me, if you want your kids’ pictures, you have to talk tous.’ But this meant one thing – to confess to terrorist crimes he had not committed.

Aamer refused, insisting as ever he had done nothing wrong, and that he had no information thatcould help the fight against terrorism. Eventually, ‘guards came to pick me up. I went and kissed thepictures by the door. The guard asked me why I was doing that, and I told him: “these are my kids,and they refused to give me their pictures”.’

One day in 2009, after more than seven years in Guantanamo, Aamer was told without warning hehad a phone call: ‘They wouldn’t tell me who, but they said it’s really something important. I thought

my mother had died. I sat down in a room and they gave me the phone and then I found it was mywife. I thought she would be crying, but actually I was the one who was crying. I was crying like ababy on the phone, truly.

‘I also spoke to my daughter Johaina and I was crying with her, too. A lot of men are too scared to crybecause they think crying is weakness. I don’t believe that. When these tears come out, I think it’s



Pride: With children Johaina and Michael

your heart, it’s what makes your heart alive.’

In 2012, the family was allowed the first of severalvideo calls, using Skype. Aamer cried then too: ‘Ican barely describe what I was feeling. It’shappiness mixed with fear, mixed with anger, mixedwith everything. Love and hate together.’

Daughter Johaina, 18, sons Michael, 16, Saif 15, and

Faris, 13 –born the day Aamer arrived atGuantanamo, February 14, 2002, and who hadconsequently never met him – came to theapartment late in the day after Aamer’s return toEngland.

To their father’s utter dismay, that first meeting wasawkward.

The years of his absence could not simply beerased. When they entered the room, he said, ‘I justwanted to hug them and kiss them. But they werestanding stiff. It tore my heart. They are shy kids tobegin with. But they were looking at me and lookingaway. It was hard.’

IN truth, he realises now it could have been no other way. They needed time; and slowly, after Aamer returned to the family home in South London, thedistance between them melted away. ‘The weekafter I got home, I made a barbecue in the garden,even though the weather was a little bit cold. Theyloved it: they could see I hadn’t lost my touch as a chef. Now I’m a hard-working man at home, doingthe dishes, cleaning the house, and I love cooking for the kids. We’re getting used to each other. I takethem to the mosque. When the weather gets better, we’re going to get bikes, go on weekend rides.’

Two weeks ago – three weeks after his release – they were ready for that most British of familyoutings: the big shopping expedition, to which I was invited. Shaker rang me and asked if I would meethim at Bicester Village, the upmarket outdoor shopping mall near Oxford – his first family outing for 14years. As we sat having lunch in a branch of Pret a Manger, it was easy to see that the early tensionswere dissipating.

Shaker was beaming: ‘I’m finally living. I’m here with my kids, trying to learn to be a father.’ His sons,like all teenagers, were staring at their smartphones – new models brought as gifts by Shaker’snephew, who was visiting from Saudi Arabia.

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Inmates: Detainees are pictured in Camp 6 inside Guantanamo Bay's prison where Aamer was detained

He had one, too: ‘I haven’t mastered it yet. Not even one per cent of what it can do. This is one of thebiggest changes since I went away. People spend so much time looking at them!’

He mentioned other changes that had struck him: ‘London seems richer: when you see all the newbuildings, the cars. And the people are different, too. Before, when you walked in the street, you heardonly English being spoken. Now if you go out, you will hear ten or 15 languages, from Eastern Europe,China, everywhere. London is truly becoming a cosmopolitan city.’

While Johaina and Zinneera hunted for bargains, Faris described to me the moment he saw his father for the first time. A tall, well-built boy, who loves to sketch buildings and would like to be an architect,he said: ‘It was so amazing. Even now, my senses are telling me that he’s back, but in my brain, I still

can’t believe it. When I was younger, I used to think he might possibly never come back. Yet now he’shere.’

Shaker added that when he first met Faris, ‘I told him, I don’t expect you to love me straight away. I justwant you to trust me, because it’s hard to love someone when you don’t know them.’

Michael, 16, was just two when his father was first detained. ‘I have no memory of him then. Mum usedto tell us that our dad was in school, but his teacher wouldn’t let him come home. Then one day a letter came from Guantanamo. My sister read it and we started researching what was happening on theinternet. That’s when it hit us that he was a prisoner, that he was gone, and that he might never becoming back.

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Detained: Cells in one of the communal wings of Camp 6 in Guantanamo Bay's infamous prison where Aamer was

‘There were a few times when we thought he might be coming, but he didn’t. But when other detaineeswere released, I was happy, because I felt he might be next.’

Freedom, Aamer said, has brought other, simple joys: above all, something almost everyone takes for granted – that of ‘being treated like a normal human being.

‘A few days ago, I was with my daughter, using our Oyster cards to go through the gates on the Tube,and there was this guy in a wheelchair. He asked me for help, to push him to the bus station. He was aclean-shaven white guy and I’m an Arab with a beard. I said, “Of course I will help you, and I’m sohappy you asked me.”

‘It was a little bit uphill and I pushed him all the way and I was talking to him. Fourteen years I’ve beencontrolled, 14 years I haven’t talked to a normal human being, and here is somebody who will talk tome, who isn’t scared. I was so happy because I felt like, yes, this is it, I’m back.’

On another occasion, Aamer went to open a bank account. He sat with a teller, going through a form,

‘And then we came to, “OK, Mr Aamer, where did you live three years ago?” I said I was living in America. He said, “Beautiful, for how long?” I said for the past 14 years. He goes, “OK, could youplease give me the address?”

‘I’m not going to lie to my bank, so I looked at him and I said, “I was in Guantanamo for 14 years.” Hisresponse was shocking. I thought he was going to say, “Can you wait a minute I need to speak to mymanager.” Actually he just took my hand and said, “I am honoured to talk to you.” He said, “Listen, justcome here anytime if you need any help.” That’s what makes you happy: an average, normal person inthe street who knows you have really had a great injustice, but now they are going to try to help you.’

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Back home: Shaker Aamer, 48, finally arrived back in London last week after 14 years at Guantanamo Bay

Aamer said he knows the road ahead will not be easy. At first, he was scared to discipline the children.One night, after his sons had supposedly gone to bed, he found they were still up, playing on their phones: ‘I said, “Guys, please, don’t make me take all these phones away. My fear was they wouldthink, “He’s a stranger, why should he do anything to us, why should he take our things?” I don’t wantto do something that makes them hard for them to accept me. I feel I am walking on eggshells here. Idon’t want them to think, “This guy came only yesterday and now he is controlling everything.” ’

His solution was to talk to the children, to explain his difficulty: ‘I said, “Listen guys, I need you just asmuch as you need me, I’ve been 14 years away and I did not practise my fatherhood, so please letme.” I told them, “Talk to me, or send me a letter if you cannot talk about something.” I gave them anexample: if you see a girl and you think you like her, tell me, don’t be shy, because that’s normal, that’syour age, and I will explain to you what’s the difference between love and just when you’re a teenager.’

But he feels they are all making progress: ‘Michael, yesterday I’d been out and when I came backhome, he opened the door and he hugged me. I said, “Your mother told you to do that,” and he said,“No, no, I want to do it.” I was so happy because he really hugged me himself, he wants to do it.’

He said he recognises he will never get over Guantanamo entirely: the wounds run too deep. ‘It’salways going to be in the back there in my mind, it’s going to be sitting there, coming back from time totime. It’s a long period of experience and it can’t be just gone.’

Yet throughout our days of interviews, it seemed clear that Aamer is just as determined to rebuild hislife as he once was, not to be broken by torture. ‘You cannot forget it, but you try to seal it, and put itwhere it’s not really bothering you. The way I grew up with my family, we give trust a lot, and you haveseen me, you know me by now, I trust people still. You get along much better if you do. You can’t live

your life being careful, having doubts about everything. You must embrace it.’

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Documents

Guantanamo Briton Shaker Aamer Relives His 14-Year Nightmare of Savage Abuse _ Daily Mail Online