Adel Hamad arrived in Khartoum in the early morning of December 13th, 2007. His lawyers called him at his house late that same afternoon. The celebration was still going on. Over the din of music Hamad told his lawyers: "I thank God almighty and express my gratefulness to you. I can finally see the light after the darkness." But while expressing his happiness at being home, he also expressed the desire to have his name cleared. "I still want justice," he said. His lawyers will fight to have Hamad's new Combatant Status Review Tribunal move forward.
Read the full account of that phone coversation >>
Hamad's release received an enormous amount of media attention. Below are links to some of the best articles and videos surrounding his return to Sudan:
The International Herald Tribune wrote a great piece about the campaign for Adel Hamad's freedom, calling the campaign "particularly well organized" and specifically citing the website and the YouTube campaign as examples. This article quickly was picked up around the world.
The USA Today's article focused on Hamad's account of the health of Sami Al-Hajj, a Sudanese cameraman for Al Jazeera, who has been on hunger strike for nearly the last year at Guantanamo.
British journalist and author of The Guantanamo Files, Andy Worthington, wrote the best retrospective article from Hamad's arrest to his release, using a lot of Hamad's own words describing the events.
English Al Jazeera has the most detailed description of his actual homecoming and the most wonderful picture of Hamad with his 6 year old daughter, who was only months old when he was arrested. When we first started this project we had just a few blurry pictures of him to work with to get an artist's sketch of his face. It is great to see all these new pictures of him. Particularly this one.
There is a fantastic video of Adel Hamad's homecoming in Sudan. You can see the first meeting of Hamad with his daughter, and hear Hamad speak about being home again. Not to miss.
We will be posting any new developments at our blog:
http://projecthamad.org/blogThanks again for all your support. Particularly all of the blogger- members who kept Adel Hamad's name alive in the blogosphere and all of you who wrote letters to him (and to our representatives) so that Hamad knew that he had not been forgotten.
David, Laura, and Ben
Project Hamad
Over two years after being cleared for transfer, Adel Hamad