US to release last British detainee from Guantanamo Bay

LONDON The United States plans to release the last British citizen detained at Guantanamo Bay and return him to Britain, the government said on Friday.

Shaker Aamer, 48, is expected to be released once the U.S. government has informed Congress of its decision, a British government spokesman said.

“The (British) government has regularly raised Mr. Aamer’s case with the U.S. authorities and we support President (Barack) Obama’s commitment to closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay,” the spokesman said.

Amnesty International U.K. director Kate Allen said news of his release was “a huge relief for his family and his supporters, all of whom have worked tirelessly to get Shaker Aamer out of Guantanamo.”

“In the past Mr. Aamer has reportedly been at death’s door during a hunger strike and his return to his family in Britain won’t come a moment too soon,” Allen said.

Aaamer was held by U.S. forces in Afghanistan in 2001 and taken to Guantanamo Bay in 2002.

He is one of more than 800 people who have been detained at Guantanamo Bay.

His release would take the number of detainees still held at there to 113, following the U.S. Defense Deparment’s statement on Tuesday that it had freed a man accused of being the driver and bodyguard of slain al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

Aamer was working as a volunteer for a charity in Afghanistan when he was “abducted and sold for a bounty to U.S. forces,” according to London-based human rights group Reprieve.

“He was tortured, and eventually cracked, agreeing to whatever his captors accused him of doing,” Reprieve said.

“Satisfied with the confession of an abused and broken man, U.S. forces took him to Guantanamo Bay on Valentine’s Day 2002,” it said.

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