5 Years Later, Cameraman Still Held at Guantanamo
KHARTOUM, Sudan - He’s all but unknown in the United States, the country of his jailers, but in his homeland of Sudan, Sami al Hajj is a national hero. The president has spoken out about him, demonstrations have been held in his name, and a bakery in Khartoum has printed his picture on its packaging.
A 38-year-old cameraman for the Arabic news network al Jazeera, Hajj has been imprisoned as an “enemy combatant” at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for five years, but never charged with any crime. He was arrested by Pakistani police in December 2001 while on his way to a news assignment in Afghanistan, but he’s denied having any links to terrorism. 
The independent, Qatar-based network earned the wrath of top U.S. officials after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks for airing statements by Osama bin Laden. Hajj has been interrogated approximately 130 times, according to his attorneys, and nearly every question has been about whether the network or its journalists are connected to al Qaida or other terrorist groups.
Hajj had been with al Jazeera for only a few months at the time of his arrest, and he’s told military interrogators that he knows nothing about the network’s corporate structure or financing.
Family members describe him as a soft-spoken romantic who’d dreamed since boyhood of becoming a cameraman. Before he joined the network, he had a succession of low-level jobs with private companies in Sudan and the United Arab Emirates.
“People here know him to be so calm, so respectful. He’s not a terrorist at all,” said his younger brother, Asim al Hajj, 31, who lives in the family home in a working-class suburb of Khartoum, Sudan’s desert capital. “He is caught up in this because the United States government is against al Jazeera.”
Interrogators offered to secure Hajj’s release if he agreed to spy on al Jazeera, his attorneys say, but Hajj has refused.
Sudanese officials and international human rights and press freedom groups have demanded that Hajj be tried or released. Neither appears likely. Documents released by the military suggest why Hajj continues to be held: He’s alleged to have couriered money in the late 1990s to the Azerbaijan branch of al Haramayn, a Muslim charity that provided support to extremist groups, and to have once met an unnamed “senior al Qaida lieutenant.”
Hajj’s attorneys said both allegations, which surfaced in an August 2005 review board hearing, stemmed from his work as an assistant to the head of a soft-drink distribution company in Dubai. In the hearing, which he attended wearing the white uniform reserved for the most cooperative inmates, Hajj refused to respond in the absence of his attorneys, who are barred from such proceedings.
“With all due respect,” he said, reading a statement, “a mistake has been made because I have never been a member of any terrorist group, and I never took part in any terrorist or violent act.”
According to Hajj’s attorneys, on his boss’s orders Hajj once picked up Mamdouh Mahmoud Salim, the al Qaida official, at the airport in Dubai, but didn’t know he had links to terrorism. As for the funds, Hajj told his lawyers he once brought $220,000 in cash into Azerbaijan on behalf of his boss, but he thought the money was for charitable purposes.
“The money was destined for Chechen rebels and not for humanitarian support as the detainee was told,” an unidentified U.S. military officer said, according to a transcript of the hearing.
Zachary Katznelson, one of Hajj’s lawyers and senior counsel at the British legal aid group Reprieve, said that comment indicates that U.S. officials don’t have evidence that Hajj knowingly transported funds intended for terrorism.
But military interrogators haven’t questioned Hajj about those allegations, Katznelson said. In previous hearings and documents, the military made other allegations - that Hajj was part of an al Jazeera crew that interviewed bin Laden, that he tried to sell Stinger missiles to Chechen rebels, that he operated a jihadist Web site - that subsequently were dropped.
“Over the last few years, they’ve kind of shifted the goalposts,” Katznelson said. “As lawyers, if they just told us what the allegations are, we could put the proof to the test to see if he’s guilty or not.”
While in U.S. custody, Hajj has told human-rights groups that American soldiers beat him, threatened him with rape, broke his kneecap by stomping on his leg and threw him down a flight of stairs and badly injured his face.
Pentagon spokesman Jeffrey D. Gordon said the account was “fictitious.”
Since Jan. 7, he’s been on hunger strike, a practice that Guantanamo officials call “voluntary fasting.” Soldiers force-feed Hajj and the others by tying them down with 16 straps, snaking a tube through their noses and down to their stomachs, and pumping water and a vitamin-fortified milkshake into their bodies, according to Hajj’s attorneys.
“It’s clear his body is starting to break down,” said Katznelson, who last visited Hajj in mid-May. “His eyesight is failing. He had a lot of difficulty mentally focusing on things. He’s an incredibly intelligent guy but … you can see how he’s struggling.”
To Hajj’s supporters in Sudan - where the Bush administration has accused the government of genocide against civilians in Darfur - his imprisonment is a symbol of American hypocrisy on human rights.
“The U.S. says it is for freedom and human rights and an end to Darfur. They say Darfur is unjust. Why, then, do they treat Sami unjustly, and others from around the world?” said Sidahmed al Khalifa, the publisher of the independent newspaper al Watan and one of Hajj’s most prominent advocates.
Pentagon spokesman Gordon said there was a “significant amount of evidence, both unclassified and classified” that justifies holding Hajj as an “enemy combatant.” Gordon also said Hajj had repeatedly declined to answer “any substantive questions about his alleged ties to terror despite being given ample opportunities over the years.”
Al Jazeera, widely watched in Sudan and throughout the Arab world, regularly reminds viewers of Hajj’s case. The network has launched a campaign for his release and produced a documentary - each named for his Guantanamo ID number, Prisoner 345. Hardly a day goes by without a Sudanese newspaper or broadcast station mentioning his story.
He’s become Sudan’s most famous journalist, even though he was only on his second-ever assignment. In mid-2001, soon after completing an internship program, he was assigned to research a story on Chechnya and met several times in Qatar with the exiled former president of the rebellious Russian republic, who was alleged to have ties with al Qaida.
Ahmad Ibrahim, a producer for al Jazeera’s English service, said Hajj was given the assignment because of his experience in the region - his wife is from Azerbaijan - but the project was eventually scrapped.
Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, he was asked to go to Afghanistan. Hajj was on vacation in Damascus, Syria, with his wife and baby son when the call came. Other cameramen had turned down the assignment, and Hajj hesitated.
He finally took the job, family members said, because he wanted to prove himself with his new employers.
In early October 2001, he and four other al Jazeera staff members traveled to Pakistan, obtained visas for Afghanistan and crossed into Kandahar. For about 50 days, the team covered the U.S. bombardment of Kandahar, a Taliban stronghold, and lived in guesthouses alongside journalists from CNN and other news organizations.
While in Kandahar, U.S. officials said Hajj interviewed several officials, including Abu Hafa al Moritani, a bin Laden adviser who was the leader of the al Qaida cell in the northern African nation of Mauritania.
Yusuf al Shuli, a veteran correspondent who led the al Jazeera team, said Hajj was dedicated to his work and to prayers, and he rejected the idea that Hajj had extremist ties.
“We spent 50 or 55 days together. If he had any links (to terrorists), I would know,” Shuli said by phone from Qatar. “We lived together all those days. You don’t separate in those conditions. I didn’t notice him speaking with other people or trying to contact anyone.”
In December, the team returned to Pakistan, but Hajj was soon asked to go back to Afghanistan to cover Hamid Karzai’s newly formed government. At the border, he was stopped by Pakistani authorities when his name appeared on a watch list, according to U.S. officials. After three weeks he was transferred to American authorities and taken to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.
According to Amnesty International, Hajj described his 16 days at Bagram as “the worst in my life.”
“He states that he was severely physically tortured and had dogs set upon him, that he was held in a cage (in) a freezing aircraft hangar and was given insufficient, often frozen food,” Amnesty reported.
He was then taken to Kandahar and, on June 13, 2002, transferred to Guantanamo in chains. Not until this time did Hajj’s family learn that he was in U.S. custody, from a letter he wrote to his wife in Qatar.
His family in Sudan kept the news from his ailing father for several months, but when they finally told him, the news sent him into shock. He died a few days later.
2007 McClatchy Newspapers
Poor Haij. Too bad he is an honest man with high moral character.
All he has to do to go free is say ten Heil Bush’s and become a snitch for the CIA.
What a nation we have become.
This base cosntration camp is nothing more than a genetic expearament research lab. Trying to find ways to target pathagens to any ethnic people of arab, chinese and blacks. The truth shell make you free.
Damn the americans are arrogant and evil… The #1 problem in this world is the americans.
Anytime I discuss his story with other Americans most of them insist he must have done something wrong, else the government wouldn’t still have him. They simply refuse to accept that our government continues to wrap itself in the flag, while pissing on the Constitution and everything it’s supposed to guarantee.
Thank the gods for McClatchy. Too bad none of the MSM will ever touch this story.
Five years in prison without charges, and no end in sight. This is not the America that I volunteered to defend in the Korean War or that my brother volunteered to defend in World War II. This is not the America in which my brother and I spent the rest of our adult lives as lawyers. I accuse the President and Congress of violating their sworn oaths to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. Just as the President is guilty of contempt of Congress, both are guilty of betraying the elemental concepts of truth and justice upon which our nation was founded. In the words of Alan Paton, cry the beloved country.
Is it time for an “IMPEACH NOW” shout-out?
They won’t impeach, the Dems have no spine.
well I for one feel so much safer and secure knowing that this terrorist is snuggly secure at Gitmo. Just imagine what foul and dastardly deeds he might persue with his camera and microphone were he out there reporting! We might find out things we didn’t want to know!
Frosty Bunny–Just wait till their people get locked down then the MSM will get interested. Of course by them it will be too late.
CollidingRivers–
Impeach Gonzalez
Then Cheney
Then Bush! How’s that?
Poet:
Impeach Gonzalez
Then Cheney
Then Bush! How’s that?
Works for me!
I am ashamed as an American to be represented by these inhumane policies. Impeach every one of these BASTARDS now, DUMBOCRATS. THAT’S WHY WE ELECTED YOU!
I’m sorry to write this, but impeachment is not on the table. Maybe no one heard about that problem.
I keep reading comments saying impeach now, who is going to do it?
Maybe this cameraman will pass away this year and be forgotten. Well, forgotten by Americans. Most of them don’t care about anyone but themselves.
Richard Young,
I mean no offense by this question, but I wonder if you could explain how the war in Korea was defending America? I am honestly curious as to your take on this and not meaning this question to be hostile.
As to the article, I honestly don’t care if Hajj is guilty of anything, anymore. That he is from Khartoum is reason enough to have earned his active enmity. If we can’t bring charges of some serious nature, what are we doing with this man? Of course, if he wasn’t involved with terror organizations when he went in, he will surely be more interested in them when he comes out! I hate myself for being part of a government, however powerless, that steals the lives of people indiscrimately. This man has lost the youth of his son and we can never give it back. This man has lost a large chunk of his own life, and may lose his entire life, and we can do nothing to remedy that when our nation finally admits, in action, that we have committed unspeakable crimes against the innocent.
It is consistent with the ideology of this administration that we can arrest journalists for having contact with people we deem bad. A great way to shut down any real journalism left in the world: arrest those who interview people with opposing ideas. Astounding that we arrest people for donating to charities, as if everyone should know the inner-workings of every charity to whom they donate. But, of course, Bush’s views on Enron show us that the organization is not culpable; only those who succumb to the lies of the organization are guilty.
I think a complete amnesty for all political prisoners should be the campaign promise on the lips of every Democrat. Of course, they will hold the innocent, too, because they want to be seen as tough on random people who might be of a skin tint that we can freely associate the terrorism in this government-media driven frenzy of hate and fear. Justice is simply un-American. Whether it is Black teenagers sitting under a White tree in Jena, Louisiana, a vocal activist for NATIVE American rights, or a Sudanese journalist, America is proving that race matters more than law. Free the Jena Six, Leonard Peltier and Sami al Hajj.
www.unknown-arts.org/politics
If you are still a lawyer Richard Young, I have a request.
Since Congressman Conyers has broken one of the first laws of the land, by refusing to enact the impeachment bill, which sits in a file basket on his desk, would you or any laywer press charges with a federal judge and have Conyers arrested?
Our Constitution states, that if our president/vice president, break the law, they shall be impeached. It is not written they may be impeached, it states they SHALL be.
If our Constitution is not a firm set of rules__ and or a set of laws of our land__then there is no law in America.
Therefore, by holding the impeachment bill and refusing to enact it, Congresman Conyers is guilty of breaking the law and should be arrested and charged with treason, and or derelection of his elected duties.
The theory for the suit is,__ the crime speaks for itself.
A lawyer should be able to tell me if I am, or am if I am not, correct with that humble opinion.
If we think that this could not happen to one of us, we are sadly mistaken. We Americans have totally “crapped in our mess kit”. This is just one of the many examples of what happens when people are uninformed, dumbed down, complacent.
It is disgusting that we continue to let these kind of things happen. I have written my congressional representatives many times about this issue, called them names, signed petitions, threatened to vote for someone else. Nothing changes. Congress doesn’t work for us. They work for the lobbyists that line their pockets, take them out to dinner, fly them around the country in private jets, provide jobs for their spouse and family. Now I’m not bitter am I!!
How many years has Leonard Peltier been wrongly imprisoned? We have never been shy when it comes to locking up, or executing, people of color. Innocence is the least defensive claim to be considered.
Far more important is what the headlines would say if these men were released. At least, when they are in prison, their name appears rarely, if at all.
How many visit this Web Site? Hell, how many Americans are actually literate, or interested in the news beyond how many home runs were hit today. It doesn’t even matter if the Sports Hero is as guilty of perjury as Gonzo - Most of the citizenry doesn’t know what perjury is - or care.
ARRGGGHHH! I get depressed…
To Moses Kassandra: Our occupying forces (including my cousin) in South Korea were attacked by North Korean forces who crossed the 38th parallel that then formed the border between Soviet-occupied North Korea and US-occupied South Korea. At the time I was a relatively uninformed 19-year-old who viewed this as a clearly aggressive attack against the US by a proxy of the USSR, which then controlled the North Koreans just as much as the US controlled the South Koreans. In retrospect it seems less clear to me that either the US or the USSR had any justification for continuing to occupy Korea five years after the end of WWII; and certainly we have no justification for continuing to retain “wartime” military command of South Korean forces now, 62 years after WWII.
To Kem Patrick: I retired from law practice a year ago, but I am happy to offer my opinion: No competent lawyer would attempt to “press charges with a federal judge and have Conyers arrested.” Criminal charges can only be brought in the name of the state (or United States) by a public (or federal) prosecutor. No federal judge would entertain the kind of privately initiated legal action you suggest. Further, no federal prosecutor would attempt to bring charges against Congressman Conyers, because he has committed no federal crime and in any event enjoys complete immunity for any act or omission committed in his official capacity as a member of Congress. Sorry to disappoint you, but you just can’t legally get there from here.
Thank you Richard, was afraid of that. It looks like we the people have little say and I thought those guys worked for us.
Of course I know they don’t, they work for the lobyists. BTW, I served in Korea also, then Vietnam, most of the 23 years in troop carrier squadrons, ended up in SAC IG. That was when Americas were proud to be Americans. This Gitmo prison disaster, is not the America I grew up in.
How about an in-competent lawyer?
A bunch of that kind recently entered the Department of Justice, but I don’t think they would be your kind of American.
Mr. Young:
Thank you.
John Conyers could defy the Republicans in 2004-2005 to investigate and hold extensive unofficial in-depth hearings to reveal the outright theft of our presidential election in Ohio. He could issue a comprehensive report as the senior minority member of the House Judiciary Committee which should have brought about impeachment. But now he’s the bad guy because the Senate Republicans block the impeachment process. This “chess game” they are playing is exceedingly complex. Play attention to all the nuances on both sides. Don’t depend on the MSM to give you an accurate picture either. This takes far more study. Keep bugging the Republicans and encouraging the Democrats to do justice.
So, how many people who post here have come to the conclusion that the entire government is now against us and what ever they do is simply BS?? I mean with all of the current news and lack of adherence to the Constitution it is more and more clear that the “great cull” is on! It seems that the post count is sort of low and I’m thinking that people are waking up to the possibility that the government plutocrats simply want us dead!
No matter what things are so bad now that citizens must do something and the current government must be abolished since both paths we could be on lead back to Rome. One path is sheer idiocy and the other path is population cull!
If Americans do not do something soon we will be among those that are held as enemy combatants by our own government.
Our rights are being stripped away and with the most recent executive order 17:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070717-3
that allows the government to block access to your property for an unspecified amount of time if you are found to be in violation of this executive order (notice the word “block” - to make the movement or flow difficult or impossible - is used instead of “seize” - to take hold of forcibly -).
Pay close attention to the references to U.S. citizens and how easily this can be used against citizens if they wanted to block your assets. Does a donation to an anti war organization in Iraq fall under executive order 17, if the organization wanted the U.S. to leave Iraq?
Use of violence “and” “undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq and to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people,“.
You might also want to read the associated executive orders: 13303, 13315, 13350 and 13364.
I know nothing about Samii al Hajj, but I do know it shows a pattern towards something more sinister for us.
Americans need to be marching in the streets and boycotting. Other countries do this.France has a boycott very day and it works for them. This is the only way we can scare these elitist bastards neocons.
Can’t argue that Shadow. I believe we will be be in a depression very soon and it will then be anarchy and a whole different ball game. Watch the stock market fluxuate daily until it crashes. Then, ____ look out.
Gordon also said Hajj had repeatedly declined to answer “any substantive questions about his alleged ties to terror despite being given ample opportunities over the years.”
=======
“I don’t have any ties to terror” being defined as a non-answer.
And how about feeding milk to the hunger strikers at Guantanamo? Normal adults are lactose intolerant — only descendants of northern Europeans carry a gene that lets them digest milk as adults.
So they are treating the hunger strikers by feeding them purgatives.
There is no decent human being on this earth who would allow this to have happened and now that it is so well publicised, allow it to continue.__ The key word there is decent.
I sincerely feel bad for Sami, but I must remind you all he is one of maybe 16,000, maybe more, innocent people in the great american gulag- Gitmo is there for us and the world to see, but the other prisons are secret so we can’t know how many people are in how many prisons. We can safely assume they are being tortured, because who ever heard of anyone who got out and hadn’t been? Remember Barbara Lee after 911, the only congressperson to vote against the attack on Afghanistan? How she said “Let us not become the evil we deplore”? Her words have been echoing off the walls of congress and the white house ever since. And just look at us. The nightmare she imagined is indeed what we have become.
Wake up folks.
Few living within so many countries could ever see it coming yet it did happen in Germany. Italy. Japan. USSR. Eastern Europe. Cuba. Brazil. Uruguay. Argentina, Chile, Iraq, Israel, etc etc etc. Quasi or absolute mililtary dictatorships designed to help “unify the population” behind some insane well-meaning scheme or other…invriably breaking into gross human rights abuses and much worse….ONLY A RULE OF LAW TRULY RESPECTING ALL PEOPLE WITH EQUAL RIGHTS IS CAPABLE OF MAINTAINING A MARGIN OF SANITY. At times like these it is imperative that we take to the streets. WHAT LITTLE THIS COUNTRY HAS EVER REALLY ACCOMPLISHED IS BEING TRASHED. GET OUT THERE AND TELL PEOPLE WHAT YOU THINK. Start with ust an hour a week. Call up the peace-niks, decide on a site and time and JUST DO IT.
al jazeera recently showed a documentary about an egyptian (german) who suffered similar accusations simply because he had the same name as someone on a wanted list. he was tortured. fortunately he is now free, but his story is appalling. it could happen to anyone now. and that includes you…………………….
Moses Kassandra July 27th, 2007 6:53 pm
“This man has lost the youth of his son and we can never give it back. This man has lost a large chunk of his own life, and may lose his entire life, and we can do nothing to remedy that when our nation finally admits, in action, that we have committed unspeakable crimes against the innocent.”
As long as Congress allows the fight against terrorists to be labeled as a “War”, the innocent don’t have a chance; terrorists have been around since day one and they will undoubtedly be around until all the species on earth vanish from one thing or another.
Release Sami AlHajj and all detainees now! Take the US Constitution out of the trash can for cripes sakes! As a baby boomer kid, I grew up pledging my allegiance to the American flag with Liberty and Justice for all. Now I have come to the conclusion that this is all a fraud and that the US has become the 4th Reich. Here’s some more info on Sami ALHajj.
http://www.prisoner345.net/
For Bush and Cheney and their ilk, silencing your critics this way is just business, nothing personal. Ask Valerie Plame.
Using campaign spending limits to get America better politicians is the only way to solve America’s problems enough.
Waterboard the government, all of ‘em, and see if they have anything to say then….