Story highlights Shaker Aamer gives thanks for "support of people so strongly devoted to the truth"

Lawyer: "No words can describe torture, isolation, despair" that Aamer endured

Aamer goes home eight years after being cleared for release from Guantanamo Bay

(CNN) For Shaker Aamer, the last British resident held in the American prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, it has been a long haul.

Bounty hunters captured Aamer in Afghanistan in 2001 and turned him over to the United States. He was cleared for release from Guantanamo in 2007. And on Friday, eight years later, he finally returned home to the UK, arriving around 1 p.m. local time (9 a.m. ET).

"The reason I have been strong is because of the support of people so strongly devoted to the truth," Aamer said in a statement Friday.

"If I was the fire to be lit to tell the truth, it was the people who protected the fire from the wind. My thanks go to Allah first, second to my wife, my family, to my kids and then to my lawyers who did everything they could to carry the word to the world," he said.

He credited everyone who sought justice for him and an end to the Guantanamo prison.

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