Shaker Aamer, last Guantanamo Bay inmate from U.K., freed

The last Britishresident heldat the U.S. military facilityatGuantanamo Bayhas returned home after almost 14 years without being charged with any offence, and eight years after the American government cleared him for release.

Shaker Aamer, a Saudi citizen who married a British woman and moved to London in 1997, landed Friday at London'sBiggin Hill airport at about 1 p.m. local time in a private plane that taxied into a hangar.Aamer, who hadbecome a defiant spokesman for the hundreds of men indefinitely imprisoned as part of America's war on terrorism,wasreleased from the U.S. military facility inCuba Thursday evening.

• Obama's bid to shut Guantanamo mired in squabbles
• Hunger-striking Aamerreaches out through Twitter
• Omar Khadr tells his Guantamo story in film

The freeing of Aamer comes after a publicity campaign and at the request of British Prime Minister David Cameron, who had urged U.S. President Barack Obama to resolve the case of the last prisoner at Guantanamo with significant ties to Britain. Cameron's predecessor, Gordon Brown, had also requested Aamer's release.

"He needs, first, to be in a hospital, and then to be with his family," said Clive Stafford Smith, one of Aamer's lawyers.

His release, the 15th from Guantanamo this year, brings the detainee population there to 112, and comes as part of a renewed push by Obama to close the facility opened by his predecessor after the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings andattacks on the World Trade Center in New York.

The United States never charged him with a crime and Aamer and his supporters have denied the allegations that he had significant links to people convicted in the U.S. of terrorism offences. Hehad been cleared for release in June 2007 by the administration of then-president George W. Bush.

Handed to U.S. for a bounty

He has received more media attention over the years than any other prisoner except the five who face trial by military commission for their alleged roles planning and providing support to the Sept. 11attacks.

Aamer was born in Saudi Arabia and remains a Saudi citizen, but wanted to return to London where he has four children, including a son he has never seen. His wife is the daughter of a prominent retired imam.

He has said that he went to Afghanistan to help run a school for girls, and fled during the chaos following the U.S. invasion. He was captured by the Northern Alliance and turned over to the United States for a bounty. He was taken to Guantanamo in February 2002.

The U.S. Defence Department has accused Aamer ofsignificant links to terrorism. They said he shared an apartment in the late 1990s with Zacarias Moussaoui, who was convicted of taking part in the Sept. 11 conspiracy; had met with Richard Reid, who tried to blow up a U.S. passenger jet with explosives in his shoes; had undergone al-Qaeda training in the use of explosives and missiles; and received a stipend from Osama bin Laden.

Those allegations and more were later found in a November 2007 detainee assessment obtained and published by WikiLeaks that described him as a member of al-Qaeda and a "close associate" of bin Laden.

But the United States never charged him with anything,and Aamer and his supporters have consistently denied the allegations.

Unofficial spokesman for inmates

Aamer spent much of his time at Guantanamo in the disciplinary units of Camp 5, a section of the detention centre where prisoners are held alone in solid-walled cells of steel and concrete.

He helped organize a hunger strike that involved more than 100 prisoners and often served as an unofficial spokesman, providing detailed insider accounts of life inside Guantanamo through his lawyers.

Aamer was one of several men picked to serve on a short-lived prisoner council formed in the summer of 2005 in an attempt to address detainee complaints. His supporters long maintained that the reason he was not released was because of his activism and fears that upon his release he would publicly air information about the mistreatment he and others endured at the hands of their captors.