Reprieve announces release of Sami Muhyideen Al Haj
from Guantánamo Bay
02.05.2008
 Reprieve, the legal action charity that represents 35 prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, is delighted to announce that al Jazeera cameraman Sami Muhyideen Al Haj, a client of Reprieve, has been released from Guantánamo and repatriated to Sudan, the country of his birth.
Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve’s Director, who has represented Sami since 2005, said:
“This is wonderful news, and long overdue. The US administration has never had any reason for holding Mr. Al Haj, and has, instead, spent six years shamelessly attempting to turn him against his employers at al Jazeera. We at Reprieve send him our best wishes as he is reunited with his wife and his seven-year-old son Mohammed, whom he has not seen since Mohammed was a baby.”
Released along with Mr. Al Haj were two other Sudanese prisoners: Amir Yacoub Al Amir, another Reprieve client, and Walid Ali. Mr. Yacoub was imprisoned for over six years, after he was grabbed from a vehicle in Pakistan in March 2002, and sold to the United States.
Reprieve is concerned that four Sudanese prisoners remain in Guantánamo, including Mustafa Ibrahim Al Hassan, another Reprieve client, who has been imprisoned for more than six years without charge or trial.
“We are grateful for the efforts of the Sudanese government thus far, and look forward to working with them to complete the job and bring home all the sons of Sudan from Guantánamo Bay,” Clive Stafford Smith, Director of Reprieve, stated.
Sami Al Haj’s story
Mr. Al Haj, who has lost over six years of his life in US custody, was seized by Pakistani forces on December 15, 2001, apparently at the behest of the US 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.
As a trained journalist, Mr. Al Haj’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 Koran, suicide attempts, hunger strikes and the number of juveniles held at the prison.
For the last 16 months of his imprisonment, Mr. Al Haj 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, Mr. Al Haj 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.
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For further information, or to request an interview, please contact Andy Worthington at the Reprieve Press Office on +44 (0)20 7427 1099.
Out of office hours, Andy can be contacted on +44 (0)7528 088235. |
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