Battersea MP Martin Linton has promised to take up the cause of Guantanamo Bay prisoner Shaker Aamer, who has been behind bars for five years.

Mr Aamer, 39, a Saudi national whose wife Zinnira Aamer and four children live in Battersea, is believed to have been captured in Afghanistan in 2002, when he was working for a Saudi Arabian charity.

Mr Linton said he would write to Foreign Secretary David Milliband on his behalf and ask him to raise the case with the US government, if Mr Aamer's family approached him.

He said: "I'm totally against Guantanamo Bay and I think it should be closed down.

"The fact Mr Aamer is a British resident means he is entitled to at least some concern from the British government, or some representation."

Mr Aamer was held in a Kabul prison in Afghanistan before he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay.

During the prison-wide hunger strike in July 2005 he reportedly became a leader on the prisoners' council and negotiated a settlement with the military before any of the inmates died.

He has been held in isolation for the past three years, however, and has never seen his youngest child.

Wandsworth Stop the War Coalition drew attention to his plight at a demonstration it held in Balham on July 27, calling for the closure of the controversial detention camp.

The local peace campaigners brought a cage to Ramsden Road and activists in orange jumpsuits distributed leaflets to passers-by.

Stalls were erected in Balham High Road, manned by campaigners keen to draw attention to the cause, and Mr Linton was lobbied at his surgery at Balham Library in Ramsden Road.

Coalition member Bruce Mckenzie said: "We had a generally positive response from Balham shoppers and residents.

"Martin Linton agreed with the aims of the campaign for closure, also suggesting that many Labour MPs were similarly supportive."

But the Government has said previously it could not make diplomatic representations to the US administration in Mr Aamer's case because he was not a British citizen.

Mr Aamer had been living in the UK since 1996 and was applying for citizenship at the time of his capture.

His wife has developed mental health problems since her husband's imprisonment.