Sami al-Haj Released from Guantánamo After More than Six Years

By Andy Worthington, AlterNet. Posted May 2, 2008.

After four and a half months of inexplicable inertia, the U.S. administration has finally seen fit to release another group of prisoners from Guantánamo, including the Sudanese al-Jazeera cameraman and journalist Sami al-Haj. Despite claims from within the administration that it was hoping to scale down the operation at Guantánamo, no prisoners have been released since December 2007, when two other Sudanese prisoners, 13 Afghans, ten Saudis and three British residents were released.

Instead, one prisoner died -- of cancer -- and another prisoner was actually transferred into Guantánamo from a secret prison run by the CIA. It seems likely that, having announced in February that six prisoners allegedly connected with the 9/11 attacks were to face a trial by Military Commission at Guantánamo, the administration was happy to drag its heels over the fate of the roughly 200 prisoners (out of the remaining 273) who are unlikely ever to face a trial, in the hope that the 9/11 trials will secure its legacy and divert attention from the seemingly endless limbo faced by these other men.

The most celebrated Guantánamo prisoner -- at least in the Middle East -- Sami, whose story was reported at AlterNet just a few weeks ago, was seized by Pakistani forces on December 15, 2001, apparently at the behest of the U.S. authorities, who suspected that he had conducted an interview with Osama bin Laden. As with much of their supposed intelligence, this turned out to be false, but as his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, the Director of the legal action charity Reprieve (which represents Sami and 34 other Guantánamo prisoners), explained last year, "name me a journalist who would turn down a bin Laden scoop."

As a trained journalist, Sami's insights into the horrors of Guantánamo have been unparalleled. Subjected to clearance by the Pentagon's censors, his letters and his conversations with his lawyers at Reprieve have shed light on the abuse of the Koran, suicide attempts, hunger strikes and the number of juveniles held at the prison.

For the last 16 months of his imprisonment, Sami was himself a hunger striker. Although the ethics of the medical profession stipulate that a mentally competent hunger striker cannot be force-fed, the US authorities disagreed. Twice a day, for the last 480 days, Sami was strapped into a restraint chair, secured with 16 separate straps, and force-fed against his will via a tube inserted into his stomach through his nose.

On Friday, al-Jazeera broadcast the first interview with Sami since his release. As was to be expected, he looked thinner and considerably older than his 39 years. His brother, Asim, was shocked by his appearance, and said that he looked like a man in his 80s.

See more stories tagged with: al jazeera, war on terror, osama bin laden, clive stafford smith, guantánamo, hunger strike, sami al haj

Andy Worthington is a writer and historian, and author of The Guantánamo Files.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »