to Sudan on Friday, a day after being released from six years of
custody at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp where described
conditions as `bad and getting worse.'
Al-Haj, 38, whose detention drew worldwide condemnation, was
released from the U.S. military prison along with two other
Sudanese. All three arrived at the airport in Sudan's capital of
Khartoum aboard U.S. military plane.
The cameraman, who had been on a hunger strike for the last 16
months to protest conditions at the prison, grimaced as he was
carried off the plane by U.S. military personnel.
He was put on a stretcher and taken straight to a hospital.
Al-Jazeera showed footage of al-Haj on a stretcher, looking
feeble with his eyes closed but smiling. Some of the men
surrounding his stretcher were kissing him on the cheek.
`Thank God...for being free again,' he told Al-Jazeera from his
hospital bed. `Our eyes have the right to shed tears after we have
spent all those years in prison. ... But our joy is not going to be
complete until our brothers in Guantanamo Bay are freed.'