'Please torture me the old way' (From Asian Image)

'Please torture me the old way'

3:02pm Monday 13th February 2012 in Feeds

A British resident held at Guantanamo Bay for the last 10 years has pleaded to be tortured “the old way”, saying he is being destroyed mentally and physically.

Shaker Aamer, 43, will have been held without charge for exactly 10 years tomorrow and has been kept in “separation” since last July, campaign group Reprieve said.

It comes as a new law in the US now enables Aamer to be released without a personal certification from US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta.

Aamer said: “Please torture me the old way. Here they destroy people mentally and physically without leaving marks.”

Cori Crider, the group’s legal director who visited Aamer in the controversial detention centre, said: “Shaker is no longer the man he was ten years ago.

”He has dropped to perhaps 150 pounds, losing 40% of his body weight; his face bears the marks of suffering and of time passing; and while he has an irrepressible spirit, the authorities seem determined to grind him down to nothing.”

Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve’s director, added: “It is inconceivable that our closest ally could hold Shaker, the father of four little British children, for 10 years without charge, and for five years after he has been cleared for release.

”Surely the UK is not totally impotent when it comes to protecting such basic human rights.”

Tim Hancock, Amnesty International UK campaigns director, added: “It’s largely fallen out of the headlines, but Guantanamo has been an utter travesty of justice and it’s staggering that Shaker Aamer is still there without charge or trial after 10 years.

”It’s surely the right moment for the Foreign Secretary William Hague to once again insist that the US authorities should either try or release this man.”

Aamer was captured in December 2001 by the US, which has claimed he was fighting with the Taliban, and moved to Guantanamo the following year, but no charges have ever been brought.

On February 14 2002 Aamer was transferred to the US military detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, where he has languished ever since.

He led the first hunger strike at Guantanamo and was one of the detainees who claimed that he was tortured numerous times in Afghanistan, including by US officials while British personnel were present.

He is originally from Saudi Arabia but is married to a British citizen and has four British children.