Sami al Hajj, who had been on a hunger strike for 16 months, grimaced as he was carried off a U.S. military plane by American personnel in Sudan's capital, Khartoum. He was put on a stretcher and taken straight to a hospital.
[In Washington, the Pentagon on Friday morning announced that, in all, nine detainees were released Thursday from the prison camps in southeast Cuba -- five to Afghanistan, three to Sudan, one to Morocco. The transfer left ''approximately 270 detainees'' at the U.S. military detention and interrogation center at Guantánamo.]
Al Jazeera showed footage of Hajj being carried into the hospital, looking feeble and 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 Guantánamo Bay are freed,'' he added.
''The situation is very bad and getting worse day after day,'' he said of conditions at the U.S. prison camps in Cuba. He claimed guards prevent Muslims from practicing their religion and reading the Koran.
''Some of our brothers live without clothing,'' he said.
The U.S. military says it goes to great lengths to respect the religion of detainees, issuing them Korans, enforcing quiet among guard staff during prayer calls throughout the day. All cells in Guantánamo have an arrow that points toward the holy city of Mecca.
Hajj was released along with two other Sudanese from Guantánamo on Thursday. He was the only journalist from a major international news organization held at Guantánamo and many of his supporters saw his detention as punishment for a network whose broadcasts angered U.S. officials.
The military alleged he was a courier for a militant Muslim organization, an allegation his lawyers denied.
Hajj said he believed he was arrested because of U.S. hostility toward Al Jazeera and because the media was reporting on U.S. rights violations in Afghanistan.
Hajj was detained in December 2001 by Pakistani authorities as he tried to enter Afghanistan to cover the U.S.-led invasion. He was turned over to the U.S. military and taken in January 2002 to Guantánamo Bay, where the United States holds some 275 men suspected of links to al Qaeda and the Taliban, most of them without charges.
Reprieve, the British human rights group that represents 35 Guantánamo prisoners, including Hajj, said Pakistani forces apparently seized Hajj at the behest of U.S. authorities who suspected he had interviewed Osama bin Laden.
But that ''supposed intelligence'' turned out to be false, Reprieve said in a news release.
''This is wonderful news, and long overdue,'' said Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve's director, who has represented Hajj since 2005. ``The U.S. administration has never had any reason for holding Mr. al Hajj, and has, instead, spent six years shamelessly attempting to turn him against his employers at Al Jazeera.''
Sudanese officials said Hajj would not face any charges.
The U.S. Embassy in Khartoum issued a brief statement confirming the detainee transfer with Sudan and saying it appreciated Sudan's cooperation.
Hajj's lawyers said the 38-year-old has been on a hunger strike since January 2007 to protest conditions and indefinite confinement at the prison.
Attorney Zachary Katznelson of Reprieve, who met Hajj at Guantánamo on April 11, said he was ''emaciated'' because of his hunger strike and had recently been having problems with his liver and kidneys and had blood in his urine.
''Sami is a poster child for everything that is wrong about Guantánamo Bay: No charges, no trial, constantly shifting allegations, brutal treatment, no visits with family, not even a phone call home,'' Katznelson said Thursday.
``Sami was never alleged to have hurt a soul, and was never proven to have committed any crimes. Yet, he had fewer rights than convicted mass murderers or rapists. What has happened to American justice?''
Al Jazeera is based in Qatar and is funded by the royal family of the Persian Gulf nation. Its Arabic channel has been excoriated by the Bush administration as a mouthpiece for terrorists, including Osama bin Laden.
Wadah Khanfar, managing director of Al Jazeera Arabic, said of Hajj's release: ``We are overwhelmed with joy.''
Hajj was never prosecuted at Guantánamo, so the U.S did not make public its full allegations against him. But in a hearing that determined that he was an enemy combatant, U.S. officials alleged that in the 1990s, Hajj was an executive assistant at a Qatar-based beverage company that provided support to Muslim fighters in Bosnia and Chechnya.
The U.S. claimed he also traveled to Azerbaijan at least eight times to carry money on behalf of his employer to the Al Haramain Islamic Foundation, a now defunct charity that U.S. authorities say funded militant groups.
The officials said during this period that he met Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, a senior lieutenant to Osama bin Laden who was arrested in Germany in 1998 and extradited to the United States. Officials did not provide details.
Reprieve identified the two other Sudanese Guantánamo detainees who were released as Amir Yacoub Al Amir and Walid Ali.
Reprieve also said Moroccan detainee Said Boujaadia, 39, was also released. He was flown home on the same plane as Hajj, which made a stop in Morocco. The group said he was taken into custody in Morocco.
Boujaadia had earlier in his detention testified, with immunity issued by a Bush administration official, at a military commissions hearing on the status of Osama bin Laden's driver.
Boujaadia said the two men had been captured by U.S. allied forces separately but roughly at the same time near Taktapol, Afghanistan, in November 2001.
The driver, Salim Hamdan, 36, of Yemen, faces a June 2 trial as an alleged al Qaeda co-conspirator.
