The Sudanese government urged the U.S. administration on Thursday to set free a Sudanese cameraman for pan-Arab satellite television al-Jazeera, who had been detained in a U.S. prison for years.
Sami al-Hajj "has been in detention in the Guantanamo Bay prison for years without trial or specific charges directed against him," the Sudanese government said in a memorandum to the Bush administration.
The memorandum was handed over on Thursday to the U.S. embassy in Khartoum by the Sudanese Foreign Ministry, in which Khartoum confirmed its readiness to receive Sami al-Hajj upon his release.
Sami al-Hajj was arrested by the Pakistani authorities on the Afghan-Pakistani border while on assignment for al-Jazeera in December 2001, and was transferred later to the prison in the U.S. military base of the Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
Ali al-Sadig, spokesman for the Sudanese Foreign Ministry, told reporters that the memorandum explained that Sami al-Hajj had not been known for any fundamentalist positions and in case he was released he would pose no threat to American security.
Three Sudanese citizens released from Guantanamo earlier had not posed threats at the internal and external levels, the spokesman said.
He promised that "if Sami al-Hajj is released, he will be dealt with by the Sudanese government according to the principles of the international laws and human rights."
Source: Xinhua
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