U.S. Challenges Condition of Gitmo Detainee
Officials say he was in fine health until cameras recorded his return home.
May 2, 2008 — -- Video footage of a just-released Guantanamo detainee, unable to walk and grimacing in pain as he is loaded off a U.S. military plane in Sudan, didn't sit too well with Pentagon officials who say Sami al-Hajj appeared healthy and good-natured as he boarded the plane to leave Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Broadcast images of his arrival in Sudan showed a weakened al-Hajj returning home after six years of detention at Guantanamo.
The Pentagon sees al-Hajj's weakened appearance as the former detainee's latest effort to influence public opinion.
"He's a manipulator and a propagandist," said one of the three Defense Department officials who spoke to ABC News.
One of the officials talked about al-Hajj's "constant drumbeat of allegations" about the treatment of Guantanamo detainees, which had apparently become an irritant to his military handlers. One of the officials said that his credibility was called into question because there was "no information to substantiate his allegations that he was mistreated at Guantanamo."
He had maintained his innocence since he was captured by Pakistani forces along the border with Afghanistan in late 2001, shortly after the U.S. invasion of that country. Working as a cameraman for the Arab news network al-Jazeera, al-Hajj was detained under suspicion that he was a terrorist financier and courier for al Qaeda.
Determined to be an "enemy combatant," al-Hajj became one of the most well-known Guantanamo detainees, as al-Jazeera often carried reports of his case and campaigned for his release.
He was transferred to Sudanese custody early Friday morning. Video of his arrival showed al-Hajj being carried off a C-17 military transport plane by U.S. Air Force personnel and being loaded onto a stretcher grimacing in pain, and eventually being taken to a hospital by ambulance.
Additional video of al-Hajj's return showed a standing al-Hajj greeting his young son and conducting media interviews from his hospital bed shortly after he had been carried off on a stretcher.
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