An Al Jazeera cameraman held in the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay may soon be released, a relative says. Sami al-Hajj, who has been detained at the prison camp in Cuba for nearly six years without charge, could be released by the end of August, Asim al-Hajj, his brother, said on Wednesday. Ali Sadiq, a Sudan foreign ministry spokesman, said negotiations are under way with the US to secure al-Hajj’s release.
“Last month, we received a memorandum from the US administration to the effect that they are considering al-Hajj’s case and will hand down a final decision this month,” he said.He has been on hunger strike at Guantanamo for the past seven months in protest at his protracted imprisonment.Al-Hajj was arrested in Pakistan in December 2001 on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border by Pakistani intelligence and was handed to the US military in January 2002.
The cameraman, who has been accused by the US of having links to al-Qaeda, will only be released if Sudan’s government guarantees that al-Hajj will stay in Sudan.
Crider said that if rumours were true that al-Hajj’s travel would be limited by the US as part of a release deal, it would be an “illegitimate” restriction.
“When the British citizens [held at Guantanamo] were released, there was no such requirement, no one was banned from travelling. There is no reason why Sami should be barred from travelling either,” she said. “How could he be prevented from leaving Sudan? His job is in Doha.”
I do wonder if Pakistan intelligence grabbed him up and framed him because he knew something about them they preferred to be kept quiet…
Update: And this!
A court-martial will start Monday for a U.S. Army intelligence officer charged with abuses at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, where he headed the interrogation center, the Army said on Saturday. The trial of Lt. Col. Steven Jordan will be convened at Fort Meade, Maryland, outside Washington, the Army said.
Jordan is charged with cruelty and maltreatment of detainees as well as making false statements and obstruction of justice, disobeying a superior officer and failure to obey orders.
The charges stem from violations of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice alleged to have taken place at the Joint Interrogation Debriefing Center at Abu Ghraib on or about September 17, 2003 to August 19, 2004
Curioser and curioser,
18 August, 2007 at 11:49 pm
That’s great news.
As I understand it, at the time the U.S. was offering financial incentives for prisoners to Northern Alliance and (I daresay) Pakistani forces, so the latter just rounded up anyone who looked a bit terroristy and sold them on, foreigners being particularly interesting (and lucrative).
They Sami for so long because, he says, they were trying to get him to testify against Al Jazeera, say that they were funded by Al Qaeda. As AJ gets more and more commercialised they’re losing a lot of their independence anyway, not far off jumping through hoops to get access to the US cable market. They’re still among the best of the corporate media, but no longer to the point of being worth this much trouble.
19 August, 2007 at 12:15 am
“looked a bit terroristy” – you brought the funny.
Yeah that boardroom putsch earlier in the year was not good, hmm so they wanted AJ framed, how surprising, as in not. ISI are still a bunch of crooks though (well y’know intelligence agencies, gah!).
19 August, 2007 at 9:02 am
Like bombing, shooting and expelling AJ from Iraq was not enough.
19 August, 2007 at 7:17 pm
Well that was obviously a demonstration of what was in store if they weren’t reigned in by commercial interests of the Emir.