2008-05-01 23:58:07 -

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Al-Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Haj, believed to be the only journalist from a major international news organization held at Guantanamo, was released Thursday after more than six years in U.S. custody, his lawyers said.
He was being repatriated to his home country Sudan, the lawyers said. Al-Jazeera reported he was en route

to the Sudanese capital Khartoum on a U.S. military plane.
The cameraman has been the subject of worldwide protests and many viewed his imprisonment as punishment for a network whose broadcasts have angered U.S. officials. The military alleged he was a courier for a militant Muslim organization, an allegation his lawyers have denied.
Al-Haj was seized by Pakistani forces on December 15, 2001, apparently at the behest of the U.S. authorities who suspected he had interviewed Osama bin Laden, said Reprieve, the legal action charity that represents 35 Guantanamo prisoners including al-Haj.
But that «supposed intelligence» turned out to be false, Reprieve said in a news release.
«This is wonderful news, and long overdue,» said Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve's Director who has represented al-Haj since 2005. «The U.S. administration has never had any reason for holding Mr. Al Haj, and has, instead, spent six years shamelessly attempting to turn him against his employers at Al-Jazeera.
A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, declined comment on the report.
Al-Haj, who was taken to Guantanamo in June 2002, had been on hunger strike for about 16 months and the military had been force-feeding him liquid nutrients through a tube inserted into his nose, said attorney Zachary Katznelson who met the cameraman at Guantanamo on April 11.
Shortly after the meeting, Katznelson said the cameraman was «emaciated» because of his hunger strike. The lawyer also said al-Haj had recently been having problems with his liver and kidneys and had blood in his urine.
Wadah Khanfar, managing director of Qatar-based Al-Jazeera Arabic, said al-Haj would spend a few days in a hospital upon his arrival in Sudan because of health problems related to his hunger strike.
«We are in a state of high expectation and we are overwhelmed with joy,» said Khanfar. He added that al-Haj's wife and child were flying from Doha, Qatar to Khartoum immediately to see him.
Al-Haj grew up in Sudan and was captured by Pakistani authorities on the Afghanistan border. Authorities accused him of transporting money in the 1990s for a charity that allegedly funded military groups.
The U.S. military alleged that in the 1990s, al-Haj was an executive assistant at a Qatar-based beverage company that provided support to Muslim fighters in Bosnia and Chechnya. The U.S. claimed he also traveled to Azerbaijan at least eight times to carry money on behalf of his employer to the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, a now defunct charity that U.S. authorities say funded militant groups.
It was during this period that he allegedly «met» Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, a senior lieutenant to Osama bin Laden who was arrested in Germany in 1998 and extradited to the United States.