Well, we've had to sue the people who
are theoretically in charge of MI5 and
MI6, William Hey and Theresa May. But I
want to be clear that I don't believe,
for example, that William Hey is going
around telling lies about Shakarama. And
indeed, I suspect, although I want to
give him a chance for a fair trial, I
suspect that um MI6 aren't telling
William Hey what they're doing in the
background. It's very important at this
point to challenge William Hey to talk
to those people at MI6 and have a very
serious conversation with them about
exactly what they have done. And they
make it emphatically clear to the United
States that Britain does not want to be
complicit in the criminal offense of
holding Shaka without trial for all this
time.
I can't really speak for the people who
are holding Shaka in terms of why five
years after he is cleared for release
he's still there but I have my strong
suspicions because he's undergone such
awful treatment worse than pretty much
anyone else in Guantanamo. There's
probably 15 different illnesses he's
suffered. He's he's worried that he's
got cancer and they haven't done the
right test for that. He's got ulcers.
He's got all sorts of intestinal
problems. He's got problems with his
head. He's got pregnant problems with
his back where he was beaten up. Uh it
just goes on and on. I've seen, you
know, some of the issues in his fingers
where his nails have rotted away and a
really horrible thing. They don't want
him coming back to Britain to speak
loudly here about what happened to him.
They'd rather send him to Saudi Arabia,
which is what they'd like to do, because
they could depend on their mates over in
Saudi to gag him and never let him talk
about the truth. Regardless of your
position on torture, and it's very clear
to me that he's been tortured, but we'll
leave that to to the police to
determine. Uh, but indefinite detention,
arbitrary detention, is another crime,
and there can be nothing more arbitrary
than whisking Shaka all the way around
the world to Guantanamo Bay and holding
him there for 11 years. No legal rights,
no nothing. Effectively, no trial, no
charges. That's arbitrary detention. And
that's clearly a criminal offense, too.
When I first went down there back in
2004, when we finally sued and got the
right to get in there, one of the people
there said, "Oh, you know, if you
lawyers insist on legal rights for these
people, we'll just kill them."
Bizarrely, that's what's now happening.
So Obama, because he opposes Guantanamo,
has embraced the notion of drones. So
now, instead of detaining people
illegally in Guantanamo, where hopefully
one day they'll get out, we just kill
them. Targeted killing as they call it,
assassinations. as I think the rest of
us call it. And we're doing that all on
the same incredibly flawed intelligence
that results in at least 85% of the
prisoners in Guantanamo not being the
extremist terrorists that they were
alleged to be. Is there anything
difficult about representing someone in
Guantanamo? Of course there is. There's
nothing to represent them with. Um, you
know, if they would give us a fair trial
and bring on their evidence and do it
all publicly, it would be so much fun
because if you can imagine, Shaq is not
allowed to know all the stuff that's
being alleged against him. I get to see
it, but I can't talk to him about it. I
can't talk to you about it. I can't do
anything about it because it's
classified. Um, and that's immensely
frustrating. And and we battle to get
some of the truth out. You know, there's
a great debate on the Guantanamo
suicides about whether they're suicide
or not. Uh but Shaka was in the same
cell block as the first three guys who
died and he was going through exactly
the same mistreatment and indeed his
evidence about his mistreatment was
crucial in the whole discussion of their
deaths. Uh and Shack is alive and then
not. Now whether they were killed or
whether it was suicide, their death was
was brought about by the mistreatment. I
happen to believe that they probably
killed themselves. Uh, and in
Guantanamo, you know, you can get beaten
up. If you don't give, you know, your
plastic spork back. A spork is a mixture
of a fork and a spoon. If you don't give
that back when ordered to, you get
beaten up by the forcible cell
extraction team. And these are people.
I've seen their uniforms and everything.
They dress up in these black Darth Vader
outfits and six of them burst into the
guy's cell and they pin him down and
beat him up. And they they do this. And
you know, I challenge anyone to deny
that that happens routinely in
Guantanamo. Uh, and so this has been
happening to Shaker an awful lot because
I will say he's not compliant. Now, I
don't know if you'd be compliant if you
were being held illegally and if you
were innocent, whether you'd think,
well, I just want to sit here and obey
all the silly rules, or whether you'd
say, "No, I'm going to rebel." Well,
Shackle's a rebel since Shaka has never
met his youngest child. uh he hasn't
seen any of his children since they were
four or five years old. Uh as a parent,
can you imagine that? Um and he wasn't
even allowed to see pictures of them
until 2006. And indeed, part of the
inhuman abuse was that um his family had
sent pictures to Guantanamo and his
interrogators wouldn't let him see them
unless he had agreed to cooperate, by
which they mean tell them what they want
to hear.
Well, I'm glad we got that photograph
out. I didn't personally. I'm not sure
how it came out, frankly. But I'm I like
it. I It shows Shaka smiling, and that's
the image he wants his children to see.
He doesn't want his children to see the
bruises. He wants his kids to see him
smiling because he does smile more now
than he used to because he he thinks
that people in Britain are beginning to
remember his case and care. and he hopes
to goodness that he'll be out to see his
four children soon. There there's much
that people can do here. Um you can go
to our website at reprieve.org.uk
and you can get Shaka's address and
write to him. I mean the mere fact that
you um write to him and express some
sense of support. It'll get through to
him eventually and then beyond that it's
up to your imagination. There have been
some great people with the save shaka
campaign who have done really positive
things to help Shaka
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