The ghosts of Guantanamo: Prisoners declared innocent... but never let out. Their jailers driven mad by the horrendous conditions. From the shadow of the original Camp X-Ray, a disturbing report from the grim camp justice forgot





It’s 8am and the Star Spangled Banner blares out from a speaker next to McDonald’s. Around me, young men and women in uniform put down their Egg McMuffins and leap to attention to salute the American flag fluttering gently in the Caribbean breeze.

A few miles away, Shaker Aamer, the last British prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, starts his day in an 80sq ft cell where he has been locked up for the past 12 years. The 45-year-old married father of four – who has been cleared for release since 2007 – faces what he calls the ‘living hell’ of being held without charge inside the world’s most notorious prison.

Last week The Mail on Sunday travelled to the remote US naval base on the tip of Cuba where 154 prisoners from 21 countries remain trapped in legal limbo and where lizards have more rights than humans.

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Deserted: Camp X-Ray, pictured is empty and over-run with weeds, while detainees are now housed in Camps V and VI,

And we discovered a surreal world where both guards and prisoners are cracking up in a hellhole President Obama vowed to close when he was first elected in 2008.

Driving around the 45-square-mile base with a US Army public relations sergeant who constantly repeats the official mantra that our visit ‘shows the transparency of what we do here’ we pass ‘Iguana Crossing’ signs near dozens of the creatures dozing in the 90F heat. Soldiers are forced to stop when an iguana wishes to cross the road. Violating this order is punishable by a fine of up to $10,000 (£6,000).

Clive Stafford Smith of the legal rights charity Reprieve, who has represented Mr Aamer for ten years, says: ‘The iguanas have way more rights than the prisoners.

‘Shaker has been cleared for release and yet remains trapped in a nightmare where force-feedings and beatings are commonplace and where he has to undergo a scrotum search to speak to me on the phone.’



Camp X-Ray, where the notorious pictures of cowering prisoners in orange jumpsuits were taken, is now an empty shell, over-run with weeds and giant banana rats. Razor wire rusts and vines trail through the cages. A lone vulture circles overhead.

Today, prisoners are housed in Camps V and VI, with the most high-profile – like alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed – held at a secret Camp VII, which troops from the US Joint Task Force are forbidden from discussing.

Still jailed: Shaker Aamer, holding with two of his children, son Michael and daughter Johninh, is the last British prisoner at Guantanamo Bay despite being cleared for release in 2007 A detainee in Camp VI, where 'compliant' detainees are allowed to spend days in a communal area, paces in circles wearing headphones wirelessly connected to an iPod Behind bars: A detainee carries out morning prayer in an outside area of Guantanamo Bay 'Humane treatment': The restraining chair used for force-feeding detainees who are on hungerstrike

The jail remains a thorn in the side of President Obama, who blamed political opponents for thwarting his plan to close it by refusing to allow terror suspects to be moved to prisons on mainland America.

Prison commanders privately admit that it will probably remain open long after Obama leaves office in January 2017.

The military has developed its own ‘double-speak’ on Guantanamo. When I ask about ‘prisoners’, I am immediately corrected ‘They are detainees, ma’am.’

Likewise solitary confinement is ‘a single cell operation’, suicide is ‘self-harm’, force-feeding is ‘enteral feeding’ and censorship is ‘Opsec’ (operational security), which means all photographs have to be vetted according to the rules – namely, no prisoners or guards can be identified and the base’s security is safeguarded.

I ask the army spokesman why he erased one photograph taken on the ferry used to shuttle passengers across a pristine piece of water from Guantanamo Bay airport to the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, known as Gitmo.

‘You can clearly see the coastline and that would give the bad guys an idea of the cliffs, our defences and where best to stage an attack,’ he replies solemnly.

When I point out that I had looked at the entire base on Google Earth in my hotel room the night before, he shakes his head and exclaims: ‘Darn!’

We are allowed to photograph Titan, a new arrival at Gitmo. He is a two-year-old Boxer, a trained therapy dog brought in to help guards deal with the stress of working 12 hours a day, six days a week for a year-long posting with just one week’s holiday midway through.

There is a standing joke at Gitmo that troops here fall into one of three categories – hunks, monks and drunks.

Solder's best friend: Titan the therapy boxer helps soldiers cope with the stress of working on Guantanamo

One soldier who is regularly subjected to ‘splashing’ – where prisoners hurl a mixture of faeces and urine – told me: ‘The detainees are locked up but we’re prisoners too.



'My buddies think I’m on a Caribbean island so it must be great. The reality is I work the same cellblock every day.



'They scream ‘Death to America!’. It’s a high-stress environment. Some guys crack.’

Another adds: ‘I miss my girlfriend and family.

'Man’s best friend is a dog and petting Titan is great therapy. All you do here is work, work-out and drink.’

Two former guards were last week charged in Texas with raping and sexually assaulting female subordinates.

Medics refuse to give figures but admit cases of depression, anxiety and stress are widespread – on both sides of the razor wire. J

oint Task Force Commander Rear Admiral Richard Butler confirmed to The Mail on Sunday that guards are routinely taken off patrol if prisoners find out their real names.

‘These guys are in constant contact. If the detainees can figure out the name of a guard and get personal information on him, that’s disturbing.

‘We watch the guards closely. We have moved guards off duty.’

He says he has ‘empathy’ for the prisoners but refuses my request to interview his sole remaining British captive, citing the Geneva Convention.

I produce a letter from Aamer’s lawyer waiving his Convention rights, but the admiral shakes his head, saying ‘nice try’. Later in the hospital, a medical officer shows off a restraining chair used for force-feeding, a practice the American Medical Association calls ‘inhumane’.

The doctor shrugs: ‘I was disappointed by that statement. We go out of our way to make it safe, humane and respectful. The first thing I did when I arrived here was have a nurse place a tube in me. It didn’t hurt.

‘I sleep well at night. Five years from now they will be alive because I kept them alive.’ We are taken to see prisoners in Camp VI, where ‘compliant’ detainees are allowed to spend days in a communal area where they can share food, watch TV, read books and magazines in a variety of languages including Pashtu and Farsi, and workout in a small outdoor exercise area. They take English, Spanish, science and horticultural classes.

Harry Potter books and copies of National Geographic are the most widely requested. We look at them through one-way glass. The officer in charge says: ‘They can’t see or hear us.’

One man paces in circles wearing headphones wirelessly connected to an iPod playing music. I tell the officer he reminds me of a polar bear I saw at the zoo who repetitively circled his enclosure for hours. ‘Yes ma’am,’ he replies, ‘A lot of these guys have issues. But they are treated better than we would be treated if the roles were reversed.’

The camp’s female psychiatrist routinely treats inmates for depression, stress, lack of sleep and anxiety. Mental health goes hand-in- hand with their physical well-being,’ she says.

‘We are caring for an aging population now with hypertension, diabetes and basic aches and pains.

‘We work with them one-on-one using image therapy and counselling. Most understand English. If they require antidepressants we prescribe them.’

Once you are in...: A guard enters the main gate of Camp 5, THE maximum security facility at Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay

Library books routinely have pictures of women scratched out by prisoners. She smiles and says robotically: ‘I’ve never had any issue being a woman. For the most part they are welcoming and appreciate the care we give them.’

Next door in Camp V – where Aamer is housed – prisoners get fewer privileges and are forced to wear an orange jumpsuit instead of the prison white or tan uniform if they are branded ‘non compliant’.

We are told ‘several’ prisoners remain on hunger strike but the exact number is classified.

In a recent letter, Aamer said he was one of 35 hunger strikers: ‘I am living just to die. Dead people are better off than us. They are living a new way of life knowing that they are dead. I feel numb. Years are passing like months and months like weeks. I feel lonely and lost.’

His lawyer claimed prisoners like the ones ‘paraded’ in front of The Mail on Sunday last week get special privileges.

Mr Stafford Smith said: ‘They agree to be paraded in front of the media and then get extra privileges like more books and access to pornography.’

That was vehemently denied by the military spokesman, who said: ‘The prisoners will say anything to get attention. The war on terror has turned into a war of words.’

Obama’s goal of shutting the jail seems further away than ever. Rear Admiral Butler confirmed troop rotas extend ‘for several years’ and work on a new $2 million sports complex continues apace.

The base boasts a cinema, baseball diamond, supermarket, Starbucks coffee shop, Irish pub, radio station, Caribbean barbecue joint and even a beauty shop.

A stone’s throw from the prison are stunning beaches, bougainvillea-covered housing, a Taco Bell and a gift shop selling Guantanamo T-shirts and fridge magnets.

There is something surreal about this little piece of Americana – originally leased from Cuba in 1898 as a strategic navy base –sitting next to a detention camp housing terrorists including Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi who allegedly planned the 2000 suicide bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, and Mohammed al-Qahtani, accused of trying to enter the US as the 20th hijacker on 9/11.

Slowly, some of the 80 or so prisoners who have been cleared for release are being moved. Uruguay recently agreed to accept five and there are commission hearings into the fate of others set for next month.