Sami al-Hajj

To provide information on ... the al-Jazeera News Network’s training program, telecommunications equipment, and newsgathering operations in Chechnya, Kosovo, and Afghanistan, including the network’s acquisition of a video of UBL [Usama Bin Laden] and a subsequent interview with UBL.

We defer to Department of Defense on any additional questions about the scheduling of detainees’ Administrative Review Boards and other details about this process.

On 26 April 2011, a classified file from Guantanamo on Al Hajj's detention was released by WikiLeaks. The file, dated 4 April 2008, describes Al Hajj as a high risk detainee with "direct ties to Al-Qaida, al-Haramayn non-governmental organization (NGO) and Taleban leadership."

In January 2007, Al Hajj and several other inmates went on hunger strike in protest of their treatment in Guantanamo, during which Al Hajj lost over 55 pounds. In response to the hunger strike, Al Hajj and the other inmates were force-fed. Al Hajj's hunger strike lasted 438 days until he was set free on 1 May 2008.

Sami Al Hajj was released on 1 May 2008 from Guantanamo Bay and flown to Sudan. He arrived in the Sudanese capital Khartoum on a US military plane in the early hours of Friday, May 2. Al Jazeera showed footage of him being carried into the hospital on a stretcher, looking frail but smiling and surrounded by well-wishers.

On 18 April 2007, the Sudanese Minister of Justice, Mohammad Ali Al-Marazi, condemned the United States' detention of Al Hajj. Al-Marazi called Al Hajj's detention an "illegal act", which ran counter to human rights. He claimed it exposed American claims of supporting human rights as "false".

When Alan Johnston, former Gaza Correspondent for the BBC, was abducted on 12 March 2007 in Gaza City by gunmen from the Army of Islam and held for 113 days, Sami Al Hajj made a plea to Johnston's captors to let the journalist go. Following his release, Johnston made a similar plea for the release of Al Hajj, being held by the United States Government in Guantanamo.

On 20 April 2007, the UK newspaper, The Guardian, started publishing excerpts from Clive Stafford Smith's book, Bad Men: Guantanamo Bay and the Secret Prisons. According to Stafford Smith:

On 7 January 2007, Al Hajj went on a hunger strike. Al Jazeera's website published his demands which included:

On 22 August 2007, Clive Stafford Smith told Reporters Without Borders that he had found Al Hajj's health had seriously deteriorated since his last visit. He said that Al Hajj looked more frail, and visibly had trouble concentrating.

On 10 September 2007, Clive Stafford said that Al Hajj was focussed on the worry that he would be the next captive to die and losing his ability to speak English.

On 11 September 2007, Al Jazeera reported that Al Hajj was suffering from depression and losing the will to live.

By 19 October 2007, Al Hajj had lost over 55 pounds since beginning his hunger strike in January.

On 23 February 2007, it was reported that Al Hajj's continued detention had been reviewed by a subsequent Administrative Review Board. Al Hajj was not one of the eighty captives who that round of Administrative Review Boards had recommended for release or transfer.

On 15 August 2007, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State stated of Al Hajj's case:

British human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith represented al-Hajj, and was able to visit him in 2005. According to Stafford Smith, Al Hajj had "endured horrendous abuse - sexual abuse and religious persecution" and that he had been beaten, leaving a "huge scar" on his face. Stafford Smith also said that Al Hajj had witnessed "the Quran being flushed down the toilet by US soldiers in Afghanistan" and "expletives being written on the Muslim holy book".

On 23 November 2005, Stafford Smith said that, during (125 of 130) interviews, U.S. officials had questioned Al Hajj as to whether Al Jazeera was a front for al-Qaeda.

Al Hajj was arrested in Pakistan on December 15, 2001. He was on his way to work in Afghanistan as a cameraman for Al Jazeera and had a legitimate visa. He was held as an "enemy combatant" at the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp, with Guantanamo Internment Serial Number 345, and was the only journalist to be held in Guantanamo.

...that he had allegedly run a website that supported terrorism, that he had trafficked in arms, that he entered Afghanistan illegally in October 2001 while US air strikes were under way, and that he interviewed Osama bin Laden.

His colleagues at Al Jazeera said "his detention is American harassment of an Arabic TV network whose coverage has long angered U.S. officials." Lamis Andoni, a Middle East analyst for Al Jazeera, said in reference to the November 2001 and April 2003 bombings of Al Jazeera's offices: "When you are targeted once, it could be a mistake, but when you are bombed twice, it's something else."

Al Jazeera responded that Al Hajj reported his passport stolen in Sudan in 1999, and that anything done with the passport after that date was likely the work of identity thieves.

In 1998, Al Hajj was treated for throat cancer and prescribed a course of anti-cancer drugs that he was to take every day for the rest of his life. In letters from the detention camp, he claimed that he was being denied these medications by the authorities.

Sami Mohy El Din Muhammed Al Hajj (Arabic: سامي محي الدين محمد الحاج ‎), aka Sami Al-Haj (Khartoum, Sudan, February 15, 1969) is a Sudanese journalist for the Al Jazeera network. In 2001, while on his way to do camera work for the network in Afghanistan, he was arrested by the Pakistani army and held in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camp in Cuba for over six years. After his release, al-Hajj wrote a book titled Prisoner 345. He was released without charge on May 1, 2008. He later attempted to launch legal action against George W. Bush.