Former Guantanamo detainee Mozzam Begg reveals a personal message of thanks from his friend Shaker Aamer as he talks about his capture and daily routine in Guantanamo.

"I have known Shaker since 1997 when he came to the UK and got married. He was working a translator in a legal firm. I knew him on-and-off until the time we both went to Afghanistan to build a school.

We had seen postcards of the school and both helped in the project, raising funds, speaking to teachers. We both lived in the same house in Kabul. At the time we were with our wives and children.

When the attacks of September 11 happened, Shaker was very upset and shocked. We evacuated the region outside Kabul. We heard the shells coming and we were separated.

The next I heard of him is when I was in Kandahar as a prisoner.

It is clear US soldiers were impressed by him but I believe his personal character and charisma is what keeps him in Guantanamo as opposed to anything he has been accused of.

At the same time everyone who has met him, interrogators, soldiers, have really liked him as an individual.

When I speak to former detainees they say I have a message from Shaker. I ask how is he, he has gone through all sorts of trauma for standing up for the rights of prisoners.

Recently some prisoners were released to Albania, and Shaker sent a message [often messages are shouted across the camp] saying he appreciates all the campaigning and he wants to come back home.

He is seeing all these people released and he is still being held.

People have been released to Ireland, Portugal - detainees who have no connection to those countries, being accepted as refugees in Europe and elsewhere. For Shaker it is devastating.

His family hasn't received a letter from him for a very long time. I think about him every day. I was there for three years - he has been there nearly three times that.

I'm not sure about his routine, it changes, but based upon what I know, his routine is, he would wake up in the morning, have morning prayer, have breakfast handed over to him through a beanhole in the door.

I believe he is in the maximum security camp, camp 6, which has all isolated cells. Which would mean he spends most of the time in that cell with no communication with any human being and that they would take him out into the recreation yard at the end of the day where he would see a little bit of light.

There will be [electric] light in his cell 24 hours-a-day. They may dim it a little bit at night. He will be sleeping on a metal bunk. His physical make-up would change. Shaker was a big man but from what I have been told he has lost a great deal of weight. His mental state is up and down but remains strong and that is one of the reasons he continues to got punished.

Despite what he has gone through he still stands up for people's rights. The prisoners love him as an individual. He is communicable and funny and talk with the Americans on their own terms. He will speak out and that is why there is a fear he won't return.

I know he knows enough that would embarrass British and Americans, he was involved with high level discussions with the colonels about breaking hunger strikes and he has information about intelligence services that people don't want heard.

All basic human rights only get given to you as much as you co-operate. You get no doctor no proper communication with your family - you give them to the worst convicted prisoners on the planet, but not those in Guantanamo."

Somebody has to recognise this is wrong and common sense has to prevail...

Shaker has never been tried, let alone charged. It makes no logic or sense, there is no justice.

The campaign to free Shaker needs to get that out.