Cleared for Release in ’07, Detainee Still Caged at Gitmo

And apparently it’s because he wasn’t obedient enough to his illegitimate, abusive masters. Amnesty International:

Shaker Aamer, a former UK resident of Saudi descent, has been held without charge at the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for nearly 10 years. He was cleared for release by the Bush administration in 2007 but is still inexplicably incarcerated more than four years later.

…Indeed, the central complaint against Shaker appears to be how he has behaved in detention in Guantanamo – he is described by the US authorities as being “non-compliant and hostile to the guard force and staff” and to have amassed more than 100 disciplinary infractions.

Shaker was a central figure in organizing detainee protests against poor conditions at the Guantanamo detention facility. This seems to have provoked the ire of the prison authorities and he has spent extended periods locked up in solitary confinement as a result.

In September 2006 Shaker’s defense counsel filed a motion alleging that Shaker had been held in solitary confinement for 360 days at the time of filing, and was tortured by beatings, exposure to temperature extremes, and sleep deprivation, which together caused him to suffer to the point of becoming mentally unbalanced.

This is apparently the dominant policy of the Obama administration with regards to Guantanamo. I wrote last week about Abd al-Rahim al Nashiri, charged with plotting the attack on the USS Cole in 2000. He has been a detainee about as long as Aamer has, he was brutally tortured and he is only now facing trial. But the U.S. government told his lawyers that even if he is found not guilty and acquitted of all charges, they don’t have to release him.

Even if found not guilty and acquitted of all charges – or if detainees have in fact never been charged with any crime and have been officially cleared for release by the U.S. government – Obama keeps them caged.