Guantánamo: Sami al-Hajj freed from detention
Posted: May 15, 2008
Muhammad al-Hajj, son of al-Jazeera journalist and former Guantánamo detainee Sami al-Hajj, had not seen his father for six years. © Private
Sami al-Hajj, a Sudanese television cameraman, has been released from Guantánamo Bay after more than six years in detention.
Amnesty International members had long been calling on the United States to give Sami al-Hajj a fair trial or release him.
According to the BBC, a US military airplane brought al-Hajj to Khartoum, Sudan, on May 2, 2008. He was carried off the plane on a stretcher.
“I have been so overwhelmed with happiness that I've been in tears,” he reportedly said.
Al-Hajj was held by the US government without charge for over six years. Sami al Hajj has said that while in US custody he was subjected to torture and ill-treatment, including beatings and denial of medication for cancer.
Al-Hajj was working for the television station al-Jazeera when Pakistani police stopped him in December 2001. He was handed over to US officials, who took him to the notorious Bagram airbase in Afghanistan and later transferred him to Guantánamo Bay.
Sami al-Hajj has described the first 16 days he spent in Bagram airbase as the worst in his life. He says he was severely tortured and had dogs set upon him. He was constantly interrogated.
He said, “Most of my interrogation has been focused on getting me to say that there is a relationship between al-Jazeera and al-Qa'ida.”