Al Jazeera cameraman released from Guantanamo

DUBAI (Reuters) - An Al Jazeera cameraman held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay for six years without charge has been released, the network said on Thursday.

Sudanese-born Sami al-Haj, who suffered health problems after a long hunger strike, arrived in the Sudanese capital Khartoum early on Friday aboard a U.S. military plane, the Qatar-based broadcaster said.

The Pentagon was not immediately available for comment, but a senior U.S. defense official in Washington speaking on condition of anonymity said: "He's not being released. He's being transferred to the Sudanese government."

Al Jazeera said Haj was seized by Pakistani intelligence officers while traveling near the Afghan border in December 2001, despite holding a legitimate visa to work for Al Jazeera's Arabic channel in Afghanistan.

Haj, who had been accused of making videos of Osama bin Laden, was handed to the U.S. military in January 2002 but was never charged or brought to trial, the network said.

"His detention for six years, without the most basic due process, is a grave injustice and represents a threat to all journalists working in conflict areas," said Joel Simon, executive director of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

HUNGER STRIKE

Al Jazeera said Haj had been on a hunger strike since January 2007 and had been force-fed through his nose twice a day while strapped down.

Sudan's Justice Minister Abdel Basit Sabderat said Washington had already had enough time to produce any evidence against Haj and that Khartoum had no plans of holding him.

"As minister of justice I am not aware of any accusations against Sami al-Haj ... that would stand between him and his freedom," he told Al Jazeera.

Al Jazeera showed footage of Haj being carried to hospital in a stretcher and said two other Sudanese were also released.

"We have to be happy but also sad over our brothers (still being held)," Haj told Al Jazeera by telephone. He accused Guantanamo authorities of repeated violations of the Muslim prisoners' religious sensitivities.

Haj's attorney, Zachary Katznelson, said: "We don't believe there is any reason that would justify detaining Sami in Sudan even for one single day."

Wadah Khanfar, Al Jazeera's director general who is in Khartoum to welcome Haj, accused the U.S. military of urging the cameraman to spy on the operations at the network.

"We are concerned about the way the Americans dealt with Sami, and we are concerned about the way they could deal with others as well," he said in a report on the Al Jazeera website english.aljazeera.net. "Sami will continue with Al Jazeera."

BBC reporter Alan Johnston, who was kidnapped and held for months in the Gaza strip, wrote to Haj last year to express his support and thank the cameraman for an appeal he made to the Gaza kidnappers to release him.

Haj made a public appeal to Johnston's kidnappers in March last year, saying: "While the United States has kidnapped me and held me for years on end, this is not a lesson that Muslims should copy."

There are several hundred detainees at Guantanamo. The first prisoners arrived nearly six years ago after the United States began what U.S. President George W. Bush called a war on terrorism in response to the September 11 attacks by bin Laden's al Qaeda network in 2001.

(Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols in Washington; Editing by Ibon Villelabeitia)