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.
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.
I am sure right-wing bloggers have lots of evidence that will “come out later” from their double-secret military sources, just like it did with Bilal Hussein.
4tehlulz
Remember back in the day when people released from years in prison came TO the U.S.?
Good times.
Wilfred
I posted a comment last night on the open thread about this – thanks for posting on it, John. This story is one of many of the absolute goddamned disgraces of the Bush Administration and its shit enablers in the press and blogosphere. Remember that we have been told repeatedly that the men remaining in Gitmo were the worst of the worst, hard core dead-enders wank, wank, wank. But now he’s been released.
6 years. No trial, no charges.
joe
Since hunger strikes by prisoners, like suicide attempts, are now considered a technique of assymetrical warfare, I just don’t see how we can release someone who is known to have committed acts of war against United States military personnel. At least, not until the War on Terror is over, and Terror signs a surrender document aboard a naval vessel.
Also, I live in my mom’s basement, consider my comments on blog threads to be a front in the War on Terror, receive Christmas cards from the Cheetos company, and would have totally gone all BAM KAPOW! on the Virginia Tech shooter if I’d been there.
cleek
nah, it’s OK – it’s not like they were being punished or anything.
Cris
On a side note, I’ve noticed in the last week or so that news outlets appear to be crossing a threshold in their awareness of Arabic, and are no longer appending the article “al” to names. Al-Jazeera is here referred to as the Jazeera Network, and several recent headlines that a year ago would have said “al-Qaeda” now simply say “Qaeda.”
Genine
Really. Scalia needs meds- seriously. I really don’t think people are this screwed up naturally. He lacked some sort of nurturing or something. We really have some insane paradigms going on in the world.
BTW, John, your e-mail doesn’t work.
jake
Um. Well. He was safer in Gitmo than roaming the streets of Terraville.
Ah crap. I can’t top joe’s delicious bit of spoofery.
J.D. Rhoades
The people in Guantanamo m according to the Bushistas, are there becuase they’re the “worst of the worst”. So when is someone going to ask Shooter Cheney why so many of them eventually get turned loose?
Zifnab
As so as they can pry him out of his undisclosed location? But no, seriously, this guy doesn’t bother to appear much in public anymore. I think he’s laying low until he can be declared John McCain’s stealth running mate.
Robyn Cole's Linguistic Kid
It’s certainly interesting to read about, thanks for posting.
Reminds me of a few political cartoons, with Bush saying “Remember, we do NOT torture. Say it!” while he is dunking poor Uncle Sam.
Poor Uncle Sam.
Rick Taylor
This American Life did an excellent program on Guantanamo, well worth listening to. It isn’t just a few unfortunate innocent people, the bulk of the people there shouldn’t be there.
chopper
if this guy’s the worst of the worst, then why the hell are we fighting these guys?
skyler
This is actually really good news. On Al-Jazeera this guy has been mentioned every single day for 6 years. Other Arab media also bring him up too. It has been a PR disaster for America.
Cris, actually it’s incorrect to refer to Al-Jazeera as Jazeera or Al-Qaeda as Qaeda. It’s like calling Le Monde Monde. The definite article Al is part of the name.
Dennis - SGMM
This thread set me to thinking about Guantanamo Bay. What the fuck are we doing there in the first place? We’ve been paying Cuba $4085 a year to lease 45 square miles of their territory since 1903. The Castro government cashed exactly one check, by mistake, in 1959. And the purpose of Gitmo is? I mean other than a place to imprison people without trial, there is no purpose other than to give the Cuban government a poke in the eye. It’s not as if we’re going to invade Cuba from there – we don’t have the troops for one thing. Any sane nation would have normalized relations with Cuba long ago and returned Guantanamo Bay to the Cubans.
Tony J
And from The Guardian:
So I guess if he does do anything ‘journalistish’, like, oh, maybe talking about what happened to him, he gets thrown back in jail for violating the terms of his release.
Didn’t they used to call shit like this ‘internal exile’ when the Soviets did it?
cleek
we’re maintaining a place where we can disregard any laws we want to in a country that has utterly no recourse to our presence.
it’s good to be king.
Punchy
Lemmie get this straight — the guys who’ll have “tribunals” will most certainly be found “guilty”…that’s already been established. But the ones who DONT go to trial get set free, with no explanation.
WTF?
4tehlulz
>>But the ones who DONT go to trial get set free, with no explanation.
Honestly, that’s probably for the best. The amount of FAIL in any explanation would be so concentrated that it would form an actual singularity, dooming the Earth to destruction.
chopper
shit, don’t give cuba any ideas. they could take all those checks to the bank and cash em all at once and bankrupt the treasury.
Wonk
“in the Arab” … WHAT?
This is going to bother me for the rest of the day, you know.
Calouste
Dikwagging would be the one word summary. And the fact that whichever party closed that base while a Castro is still in power would lose the Cuban vote in Florida.
cbear
We are all Josef K. now.
Thanks Chimpy.
On a personal note— I spend a lot of time in SE Asia, sometimes living there for 6-8 months at a time, and whenever I am asked my nationality I tell people I am Canadian. I also avoid displaying my distinctive blue U.S. passport except when absolutely necessary, and even then I try not to take it out of it’s red cover. Almost all of my expat friends do the same.
Again, thanks Chimpy.
Krista
You wish. ;)
All we can do is hope that he somehow manages to get out of Sudan and obtains asylum somewhere so that he can tell his story. In years past, the U.S. would have likely been anybody’s first choice for asylum when escaping an oppressive country. Now? Not so much.
How the mighty have fallen.
Cris
Very interesting. I was curious whether it was correct. So I wonder what has brought on the New York Times’ new grammatical policy? (If in fact it’s new. I don’t know, I just noticed it recently.)
Tony J
QFT
jake
Guilty until proven innocent. Since he never had a trial he’ll always be guilty and his punishment will have no end.
Time to smear a little more KY one our big foam USA! #1 fingers.
Tony J
Now if anyone could fill me in on how I stop the B-Quote greyout distending like a johnny on a ten year old, I’d be ever so grateful.
Dennis - SGMM
Isn’t that a fine way to run foreign policy? The fact that Cuba can grow a shitload of sugarcane, the only biofuel source that requires no outside energy to produce ethanol, makes the fifty fucking year Cuban embargo even less intelligent now. I don’t know what makes me more angry; the stupidity or the hypocrisy. It isn’t as if we haven’t cut deals with Communist countries or with heinous dictators – is it? We sure have and we sure do. But in this instance our foreign policy is being held captive by some hard heads down in Florida who pine in vain for a return of the glory days of Fulgencio Batista’s reign over Cuba.