The last British resident to be held at the notorious Guantanamo Bay detention centre says Whitesnake helped get him through his ordeal.
In his first interview since being released, Shaker Aamer opened up about his ordeal. He spent more than 13 years behind bars on suspicion of being an extremist terrorist, and was never charged.
And he says singing the lyrics to Whitesnake’s Here I Go Again – which US authorities used as part of a noise torture tactic which involved playing loud music and white noise – helped him focus on the day he would finally be free.
He tells the BBC: “I used to sing it a lot, because the words, I thought the words fitted me. The words makes me feel like, yeah, it’s me again. ‘Like a drifter I was born to walk alone, ‘cause I know what it means to walk alone the lonely street of dreams.’
“And it’s true because it’s just dreams. Dreams that I would be home one day, dreams that I would be free, dreams that Guantanamo would be closed.”
