Shaker Aamer is the last remaining British inmate in Guantanamo,although in theory he has been cleared for release.
George Galloway, an independent UK MP for the Respect Party,explained to RT that none of the Gitmo detainees were ever giventhe help they deserved from the UK government and that in somecases the UK intelligence services were complicit with the USauthorities in Guantanamo.
Half of the internees in Guantanamo have been cleared for removalbut are still there, but the main thing that sticks out, Gallowaysaid, is the lack of importance the story is given in the westernmedia.
“If this was happening in Russia, if people had disappeared intoa legal black hole in Russia, and were facing indefinite, illegalincarceration without trial, without charge and without access ofattorneys we’d never hear the end of it. The western media would befull of it. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International would bescreaming it from the rooftops of Westminster, but because it’s anAmerican crime, their allowed to get away with it, because thepeople who control the mainstream media are fully onside.”
Jean Lambert, a UK MP for the Green Party, who has been campaigningfor the release of Aamer told RT that it was extremely unclear whythe UK government has not pushed harder for his release.
She said she believes there are two barriers preventing him frombeing returned to the UK. One is a US law, which says that anyonereleased from Guantanamo must commit to not committing a crime inthe future, “which is a totally unrealistic commitment for anyhuman being to make ,” she said.
She also believes the UK government is keen to avoid him tellingthe UK press that he was tortured in Gitmo and immediately afterhis arrest in Bagram military base in Afghanistan.
“We have not seen any steps to speed up the process [of hisrelease], pressure could be put on other EU countries to take someof the Guantanamo inmates who have been cleared for release. Nobodyelse is offering any additional help at the moment. So the US isleft with no solution as to where these people can go and theyappear to have given up trying to find a real solution for thesepeople, which is horrendous and a real blot on the human rightsrecord of the United States."
Lambert continued that she believes Obama had not reckonedon the opposition from his own congress and senate that refused toallow inmates to be moved to the US mainland, for those who neededto face trial.
“For those whom they think there are realistic charges, put them ontrial but have an open public trial ,” she said.
Instead the US is set to invest over $40 million in a newfacility at Guantanamo. The significance of which, explained GeorgeGalloway, is that rather than close it as Obama promised, theyintend to “keep it as a legal back hole where so-called illegalcombatants are incarcerated , people who have been seized andkidnapped from around the world and taken there drugged andmanacled in many cases.” He continued that Guantanamo “
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