Dear Foreign Secretary,

I am writing to you regarding the closure of the US prison at Guantánamo Bay, and to ask you to do all in your power to secure the return to the UK of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison — and also to take other cleared prisoners who cannot be sent back to their home countries.

As you know, between 2004 and 2007, the Labour government secured the release of all the British nationals held in Guantánamo, and all but one of the British residents. That man is Shaker Aamer, who has a British wife and four British children, and was cleared for release from Guantánamo in 2007. However, although government officials pressed for his return for over three years, they were ultimately unsuccessful in their endeavours. Given our special relationship with the US, which, as you recently stated, should be “solid not slavish”, I urge you to do all in your power to secure his immediate release.

As well as securing the release of Shaker Aamer, I would also like to ask you to help President Obama close Guantánamo by offering homes in the UK to other prisoners cleared for release by the President’s Task Force, out of the many dozens of men who cannot be repatriated because of fears that they will be tortured or subjected to other ill-treatment, and who, as a result, are effectively stateless.

One suitable candidate is Ahmed Belbacha, an Algerian man who lived in Bournemouth and cannot return to Algeria for fear for his life. Mr. Belbacha was also cleared for release in 2007, and yet he remains in Guantánamo because no other country will take him, and because the Labour government, which could so easily have offered him a new home, turned its back on him.

By offering a home to Mr. Belbacha, the UK would join an illustrious list of other European countries — Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Hungary, Ireland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain and Switzerland — who have accepted cleared prisoners on a purely humanitarian basis. There are no reasons for the British government not to accept a small number of prisoners on a humanitarian basis to help close Guantánamo Bay.

In addition, while congratulating you on your commitment to launch a judicial inquiry into allegations of British complicity in torture, I urge you to ensure that its scope will be as broad as possible, given the dozens of allegations relating to the intelligence services’ involvement in torture from 2001 to the present day.

I must also stress that this inquiry will be hollow if Mr. Aamer remains in Guantánamo while it takes place, because his allegations that MI5 agents were present while he was tortured in Afghanistan (which were revealed in a UK court last December) are being investigated by the Metropolitan Police (as was announced in February), and it would be shocking if his case was investigated by an inquiry while he remains unjustly deprived of his liberty.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours faithfully,

Stair Dickeeman