Freed BBC scribe thanks Al Jazeera man held at Gitmo

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http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=World_News&subsection=Americas&month=October2007&file=World_News20071005113734.xml




Sami Al Hajj



NEW YORK • A BBC reporter kidnapped and held for months in the Gaza Strip has written to an Al Jazeera television cameraman detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to express his support, a journalism watchdog said yesterday.

In a letter to Guantanamo detainee Sami Al Hajj, a copy of which was released by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in New York, Alan Johnston thanked Al Hajj for his appeal to the Gaza kidnappers to release him earlier this year.

Johnston disappeared on March 12 while driving his car in the Gaza Strip and was held for nearly four months. Al Hajj made a public appeal to the Gaza kidnappers in March, saying:

"While the United States has kidnapped me and held me for years on end, this is not a lesson that Muslims should copy."

Al Hajj has been held at the US military prison in Guantanamo for more than five years on suspicion of having links to Islamist militant groups. He has been accused of making videos of Osama bin Laden though US authorities have not brought any official charges.

"In the light of my own experience of incarceration I am aware of how hard it must be for you and your family to endure your detention, and I very much hope that your case might be resolved soon," Johnston wrote in the letter.