Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
May 2, 2008
Pg. 14
By William Glaberson
A former cameraman for Al Jazeera who was believed to be the only journalist held at Guantánamo Bay was released on Thursday, after more than six years of detention that made him one of the best known Guantánamo detainees in the Arab world, his lawyers said.
The detainee, Sami al-Hajj, became a cause in recent years for the Jazeera network, which often displayed his photograph and carried reports on his case.
He was also one of Guantánamo’s long-term hunger strikers, and his lawyers at the British legal group Reprieve drew wide attention to what they said was his declining physical and mental health.
“It is yet another case where the U.S. has held someone for years and years and years on the flimsiest of evidence” without filing charges, one of the lawyers, Zachary Katznelson, said Thursday.
Mr. Hajj, 38, was sent with at least two other detainees to his native Sudan on a military aircraft, the lawyers said. The Pentagon declined to comment.
Military officials have insisted that Mr. Hajj was courier of terrorism money and said all detainees were treated humanely at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
The case did not draw the attention among American journalists that some of them said it deserved, in part because Mr. Hajj’s full life story was not known. As with most Guantánamo detainees, the Pentagon’s evidence against him was largely secret.
“I would have rather seen more of an outcry,” said Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, which tried to call attention Mr. Hajj’s detention.
Mr. Simon said the case was part of what he called a disturbing trend of the American military to hold journalists for long periods without charges before eventually releasing them. He said his group had documented 11 such cases since 2001.
The releases on Thursday were part of a Bush administration effort to reduce the numbers of detainees at Guantánamo, which is now believed to hold about 270 of them.
Pentagon officials say many released detainees remain a terrorism threat and insist that countries that receive them take steps to monitor them or take other steps to reduce their risk.
But Mr. Katznelson said he did not expect that Mr. Hajj would be charged by Sudan.
Mr. Katznelson said Mr. Hajj had been “almost overwhelmed” at the prospect of seeing his 7-year-old son, who was an infant when he left home. But he said the former detainee’s health was so fragile that he would immediately go to a hospital after his military plane touched down in Khartoum.
The Pentagon several times changed its assertions about Mr. Hajj. But military officials have insisted recently that he carried money intended for Chechen rebels.
He had been an Al Jazeera employee for only a short time when he was captured in 2001 by Pakistani forces at the Afghan border. He was later turned over to American forces and, in 2002, sent to Guantánamo.
May 2, 2008
Pg. 14
By William Glaberson
A former cameraman for Al Jazeera who was believed to be the only journalist held at Guantánamo Bay was released on Thursday, after more than six years of detention that made him one of the best known Guantánamo detainees in the Arab world, his lawyers said.
The detainee, Sami al-Hajj, became a cause in recent years for the Jazeera network, which often displayed his photograph and carried reports on his case.
He was also one of Guantánamo’s long-term hunger strikers, and his lawyers at the British legal group Reprieve drew wide attention to what they said was his declining physical and mental health.
“It is yet another case where the U.S. has held someone for years and years and years on the flimsiest of evidence” without filing charges, one of the lawyers, Zachary Katznelson, said Thursday.
Mr. Hajj, 38, was sent with at least two other detainees to his native Sudan on a military aircraft, the lawyers said. The Pentagon declined to comment.
Military officials have insisted that Mr. Hajj was courier of terrorism money and said all detainees were treated humanely at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
The case did not draw the attention among American journalists that some of them said it deserved, in part because Mr. Hajj’s full life story was not known. As with most Guantánamo detainees, the Pentagon’s evidence against him was largely secret.
“I would have rather seen more of an outcry,” said Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, which tried to call attention Mr. Hajj’s detention.
Mr. Simon said the case was part of what he called a disturbing trend of the American military to hold journalists for long periods without charges before eventually releasing them. He said his group had documented 11 such cases since 2001.
The releases on Thursday were part of a Bush administration effort to reduce the numbers of detainees at Guantánamo, which is now believed to hold about 270 of them.
Pentagon officials say many released detainees remain a terrorism threat and insist that countries that receive them take steps to monitor them or take other steps to reduce their risk.
But Mr. Katznelson said he did not expect that Mr. Hajj would be charged by Sudan.
Mr. Katznelson said Mr. Hajj had been “almost overwhelmed” at the prospect of seeing his 7-year-old son, who was an infant when he left home. But he said the former detainee’s health was so fragile that he would immediately go to a hospital after his military plane touched down in Khartoum.
The Pentagon several times changed its assertions about Mr. Hajj. But military officials have insisted recently that he carried money intended for Chechen rebels.
He had been an Al Jazeera employee for only a short time when he was captured in 2001 by Pakistani forces at the Afghan border. He was later turned over to American forces and, in 2002, sent to Guantánamo.