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Journalist freed from Guantánamo free to work

Associated Press

KHARTOUM, Sudan -- The Al-Jazeera cameraman released from U.S. custody at Guantánamo Bay who returned home to Sudan early Friday after six years of imprisonment, will be free to resume his work and his movements will not be restricted in any way, a Sudanese presidential advisor said.

The official, Mahjoub Fadul, said Khartoum would do everything it can to help the released detainees reclaim their dignity.

''Let me state very clearly here that Sami al Hajj and his colleagues will exercise all their rights,'' Fadul said during a press conference in Khartoum. ``We are not taking dictates from any quarters . . . how we treat our citizens.''

Hajj, whose detention drew worldwide condemnation, and two other Sudanese released from Guantánamo prison in Cuba Thursday, arrived at the airport in Sudan's capital Khartoum on a U.S. military plane. The cameraman, who had been on a hunger strike for the past 16 months, 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 Hajj on a stretcher, looking feeble with his eyes closed but smiling. Some of the men surrounding his stretcher were kissing him on the cheek.

Fadul, the presidential advisor, said the release was part f a ''complex file'' in U.S.-Sudanese relations, but that it also underscored growing American weariness over this ''badly produced saga'' in which Guantánamo detainees were held without any grounds.

Hajj 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.

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