The last “British” prisoner in Guantanamo has described horrific torture at the hands of US interrogators who allegedly told him they would rape his five-year-old daughter.
Shaker Aamer, 48, has been held in the notorious jail for 13 years without charge after being imprisoned in Afghanistan on suspicion of working with al-Qaeda.
He was born in Saudi Arabia but gained British residency while living in the UK with his wife and four children, who he has not seen for 14 years.
While being held at US military bases at Bagram and Kandahar, Mr Aamer claimed interrogators used his then young daughter in efforts to “break” him.
“One interrogator talked about what he would do to my five-year-old daughter in details that destroyed me,” he said.
“He said ‘They are going to screw her. She will be screaming, ‘Daddy! Daddy’.”
Another interrogator allegedly used a mixture of “cruel and kind”, giving him hot food before resuming the torment.
Mr Aamer said: “(He) talked to me as if I were a human being. Then (he) would say he was going to screw my five year-old daughter; he was going to do this and that to my daughter sexually; how my daughter would scream and scream.
“I thought about attacking (him) and getting killed. But I wouldn’t do anything aggressive. Force is the weapon of the coward.”
Mr Aamer maintains he had been in Afghanistan working for a children’s charity and signed a false confession in 2001 because he would have “told them he was bin Laden” to make the torture stop.
According to a medical report written by an American doctor who visited him in prison, it did not.
Dr Emily Keram, a California-based psychiatrist who has assessed prisoners in the US and abroad at the request of US courts and lawyers, was acting on a request by Mr Aamer’s legal representatives.
The report, published by prisoners’ rights group Reprieve, contained testimony she recorded from Mr Aamer about his imprisonment.
He was first held by the Northern Alliance in December 2001, when he described losing “all sense of time” while packed in a basement with other prisoners.
“I was hearing people screaming from the torture day and night,” Mr Aamer said.
“They would beat you two to three hours a day with a metal braided wire, belts, and a hose. They beat you in public. Everyone could see.
“Five people would beat you. They’d kick your face, body, and head.”
Mr Aamer said guards told him he should tell an interrogator “whatever he wants to hear” to make the torture stop, so he allowed a fake confession to be filmed where he falsely claimed to be working with al-Qaeda gathering intelligence.
Dr Keram said he understood from prisons in Saudi Arabia that he would be treated well and freed quickly after complying with interrogators and believed he would be able to face trial or return back to his family in the UK.
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