The Guantanamo detainee, Sami al-Hajj (America, suicide, Zen, holiday)

[not4me]

Sami al-Hajj was arrested in Pakistan in December 2001, on an assignment to work in Afghanistan as a cameraman for Al Jazeera, he was handed over to US forces in January 2002.

He has been detained in Guantanamo Bay as an "enemy combatant" for five years, during which Clive AStafford-Smith, his lawyer, claims he has been been beaten, tortured and sexually and racially abused.
Stafford-Smith said: "The Americans have tried to make him an informant with the goal of getting him to say that Al Jazeera is linked to al-Qaeda. "He is completely innocent. He is about as much of a terrorist as my granddad. The only reason he has been treated like he has is because he is an Al Jazeera journalist."
Al-Hajj's detainment has been criticised by several human rights groups and Reporters Without Borders, the Paris-based international media watchdog.

Road to Guantanomo
Al-Hajj, 35 and a Sudanese national, was a member of the Al Jazeera news team that covered the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
He was arrested by Pakistani police in December of that year in Chaman when he and a colleague tried to re-enter Afghanistan. Al Jazeera had asked them to cover the inauguration of the new government. Al-Hajj was detained because of a Pakistani intelligence notice that called for his arrest because of suspected links to al-Qaeda.
He was held in Pakistan for 23 days and on January 7, 2002, was moved to a military jail in Quetta, that same night he was handed over to US forces. Having confiscated his passport, airline ticket to Doha and Al Jazeera press card, American troops transferred him to a detention centre at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan.
Al-Hajj describes the 16 days he spent at the base as the worst of his life. He claims that he was tortured before being transferred to Kandahar in southern Afghanistan for five months, where he says he received similar treatment.
On June 13, 2002, al-Hajj was transferred to Guantanamo Bay. On the flight there he claims that prisoners were not allowed to sleep and had to wear gloves, eye goggles, gags and have their hands and feet linkedby shackles. At Guantanamo, al-Hajj said he has been beaten and abused by interrogators, who demanded that he incriminate Al Jazeera. He said he was asked to spy for the US in exchange for citizenship and that the interrogators threatened to harm his family, including his five-year-old son, if he did not comply.

[not4me]

Enemy combatant
For most of his time under US detention, al-Hajj did not know why he was being held.
On March 28, 2005, nearly four years after his arrest, the US announced a number of charges against al-Hajj and labelled him an "enemy combatant".
All the charges have been denied by Ahmad Ibrahim, al-Hajj's colleague and biographer.
The US claimed that al-Hajj had travelled to the Middle East, the Balkans, and the Caucasus for clandestine purposes.
Ibrahim said al-Hajj's visit to Kosovo was purely work-related, that a trip he made to Syria was a family holiday and that he visited Azerbaijan because his wife is an Azeri national.
The US claims that al-Hajj ran an internet site that supported terrorists. Ibrahim denies this.
Al-Hajj is also charged by the US with arms dealing. Ibrahim describes this as "total nonsense" and believes that the allegation is possibly the result of a conversation that al-Hajj witnessed while in prison in Chaman.
Ibrahim said al-Hajj's cell-mate, a drug dealer, told Pakistan's military intelligence that he had access to a Stinger missile in Afghanistan and this led to al-Hajj being implicated.
The US claims that al-Hajj was caught entering Afghanistan illegally, but Ibrahim said his passport shows that he had a valid entry visa. The US also accused al-Hajj of interviewing Osama bin Laden, but has now dropped the charge.

Al-Hajj 'suffering from depression' SEPTEMBER 11, 2007
Two leading psychiatrists say Sami al-Hajj is suffering from severe depression and could be close to death. The British and American psychiatrists said in a letter that al-Hajj, who has been on hunger strike for 247 days, could be suffering from a form of depression known as "passive suicide", where an individual loses the will to live.The cameraman is one of about 20 prisoners in Guantanamo Bay who have carried out a hunger strike in protest at their imprisonment and treatment at the US detention centre in Cuba. In July, al-Hajj had reportedly lost 18kg in weight since he began the hunger strike, according to notes from a meeting with his lawyer. Stafford-Smith said the US military was behaving shamefully by force-feeding hunger strikers. Al-Hajj has also complained that hunger strikers at Guantanamo were stripped of all their personal items except their clothes and had only a thin mat on which to sleep.

Source:
Al Jazeera English - Archive
Al Jazeera English - News

[Ever learning]

Sad story and I´m sure he´s not the only one this has happend to.

[Terrywoodenpic]

That place should be cleared and closed down.
It is the largest shame on American sense of Justice in modern times.
Slavery was the last