On December 15, 2001, early in the morning on the last day of Ramadan, a reporter and a cameraman from Al Jazeera arrived at the Pakistani town of Charman on the Afghanistan border, on their way to cover the American military operation. The reporter, Abdelhaq Sadah, was replacing a colleague, but the cameraman, a Sudanese national named Sami al-Haj, had been on such an assignment before, and had crossed the border without incident. This time, however, an immigration official stopped him. He seemed angry. The official told Sadah that he could go, but “your friend is a wanted man and will stay here.”
In Sadah’s recollection, the official produced a letter from Pakistani intelligence—written, curiously, in English. It said that al-Haj had Al Qaeda ties and should be apprehended. Al-Haj noticed that the passport number in the letter didn’t correspond to the one in his current passport, but instead to an old passport he had lost several years ago in Sudan and had reported missing. Despite his protests, the official insisted on detaining him overnight. The next morning, Sadah returned to the border post just in time to see a Pakistani military officer lead al-Haj to a car and drive him away.
Al-Haj is a tall, slender man whose round face and glasses give him a boyish demeanor. In photographs, he looks much younger than his thirty-eight years. People who have met him invariably describe him as polite; in conversation he is said to smile almost constantly.
After Sadah informed Al Jazeera management what had happened, the network made contact with the Pakistani authorities and was told that al-Haj’s background was being investigated. On January 4, al-Haj called his wife, Asma, who was then living in Azerbaijan. He sounded confident, almost cheerful, saying that he expected to...
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This is a very good article. The treatment of Mr al Haj clearly violates art 79 of Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, which you should note. It also closely parallels the treatment of Abdul Amir Younis Hussein and Bilal Hussein, two cameramen (from CBS and AP, respectively) seized and held without charges in Iraq. This is not a single incident, as you make it out, but a full blown policy.
Scott Horton
Columbia Law School
Posted by Scott Horton
on Fri 6 Jul 2007 at 03:34 AM
It’s nice to know that terrorists can rely on mainstream sources like the CJR to carry their water for them.
Posted by TDC
on Fri 6 Jul 2007 at 05:20 PM
It's nice to know that American terrorists in the CIA and special forces can rely on the support of men like TDC to spread death and destruction around the planet.
Posted by bfearn
on Sun 8 Jul 2007 at 04:57 PM
This article is RATHER difficult to print out. Clicking on "Print" causes only the part of the article which is currently displayed to be printed, instead of the whole article -- as clicking "Print" works on every other site I have seen.
Posted by jonrysh
on Mon 16 Jul 2007 at 03:32 PM