Bin Laden’s bodyguard is released – so why won’t US free Shaker?
A SAUDI man accused of being Osama Bin Laden’s bodyguard has been freed from Guantanamo while British resident Shaker Aamer languishes behind bars.
Abdul Rahman Shalabi was sent home so he could ‘settle down, get married and have a family’, according to his lawyer.
The 39-year-old is alleged to have been an associate of senior Al Qaeda leaders including Bin Laden and 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He was released on Tuesday even though US authorities said he ‘probably continues to sympathise with extremists’.
His treatment contrasts sharply with the continued detention of Mr Aamer, the last British resident at the Cuban base. While only questionable evidence linked Mr Aamer to Bin Laden, Mr Shalabi was alleged to have gone as far as to train for suicide operations. And, unlike Mr Shalabi, Mr Aamer already has a family of his own and his wife and four children want him back in Battersea, south London.
The Daily Mail has been campaigning for the 46-year-old to be freed on the basis that his detention without trial is an affront to justice.
The decision to release Mr Shalabi raises questions once again about the haphazard and unfair process of freeing inmates from Guantanamo by the US. Despite entreaties from David Cameron, and from a group of MPs who flew to America to make their case, Barack Obama has not intervened despite promising to close the controversial prison.
Clive Stafford Smith, Mr Aamer’s attorney and a director of campaign group Reprieve, said the case showed double standards. He added: ‘Shaker Aamer has been cleared for release twice – once in 2007 and again in 2009 – a process involving unanimous agreement by no fewer than six US federal agencies including the CIA, FBI and Department of Defence.
‘Mr Shalabi was cleared 100 days before his release yesterday, yet Shaker was cleared 2,920 days ago and is still waiting.
‘He has a British wife and four British children waiting for him in the UK. It is torture for the poor man, and torture he shouldn’t have to endure a moment longer.’
David Davis, a senior Tory MP who was in the delegation to Washington DC, said: ‘This is becoming, regrettably, more and more ludicrous. The Americans have failed to provide any reasonable explanation for his detention let alone for the delays in his release.’
Mr Shalabi was taken back to his native Saudi Arabia on a government plane. He was among 32 men captured by the Pakistani military on the border with Afghanistan in December 2001 and handed over to the US, who put him into Guantanamo a year later.
In 2009 a parole panel decided he was too dangerous to released. However in June the US government Periodic Review Board changed its mind, in part because Mr Shalabi’s nephew, a former Guantanamo inmate, has lived a quiet life since his release.
The board said the risk posed by Mr Shalabi could be ‘adequately mitigated’ and that he was no longer in contact with known terrorists. His lawyers say he is ‘committed to spending his remaining days in peace’.
Like his fellow Saudi, Mr Aamer has repeatedly maintained his innocence and claims to have been tortured at a CIA ‘black site’.
His lawyers have insisted he poses no threat at all. He has been on hunger strike for months on end and his detention has left him with post traumatic stress disorder.
Mr Aamer, who moved to London almost 20 years ago, was detained in Afghanistan in 2001 where he said he was doing voluntary work.