News Article by AFP posted on May 02, 2008 at 15:11:44: EST (-5 GMT)
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Nine sent out of Guantanamo included Al-Jazeera cameraman WASHINGTON, May 2, 2008 (AFP) - Nine detainees at the US war-on-terror prison camp in Guantanamo, Cuba, were transferred out, including an Al-Jazeera cameraman, a US spokesman said Friday. Five detainees were sent to Afghanistan, three to Sudan and one to Morocco, the Defense Department said. Among those sent home was a Sudanese cameraman with the Arab satellite news channel Al-Jazeera. He accused US authorities of insulting Islamic symbols on his return home after six years of detention at Guantanamo Bay. There were "many violations -- (we were) deprived from praying and there were... deliberate insults to God's holy book," the Koran, at the US military prison in Guantanamo, Sami al-Haj said from his hospital bed in Khartoum. Haj, whose overnight homecoming was broadcast live on Al-Jazeera, was taken from the US military aircraft that flew him into the Sudanese capital with two other Sudanese former Guantanamo inmates to a hospital for medical checks. In Washington, Commander Jeffrey Gordon defended Haj's detention. Haj "was determined to be an enemy combatant by the Department of Defense," Gordon told AFP. "His transfer to Sudan indicates our belief that the government of Sudan can effectively mitigate the threat posed by Mr. al-Haj. "Information both classified and publicly available supported the decision to detain him," Gordon said, noting that as an enemy combatant (Haj) could have been held until the cessation of hostilities. |