Sami al-Haj has now returned to Al Jazeera, an organization he previously worked for a decade ago as a cameraman covering the then nascent war in Afghanistan. While on assignment in December 2001 he was delayed by a passport problem during a routine over land crossing into the country from Pakistan. Quickly named an ‘enemy combatant’ by the U.S. military, he spent the next six years and seven months in a military prison cell at Guantanamo Bay Cuba.
Drawing on his experience al-Haj is now head of liberties and human rights affairs, where his “mission is to monitor the human rights-related news and abuses and present them to TV channels.”