Al-Hajj, a 38-year-old native of Sudan, has been held in this U.S. military prison ever since.

He is believed to be the only journalist from a major international news organization held at Guantanamo.

Colleagues from al-Hajj’s Qatar-based network and the Sudanese government want to know why he is being held, but the U.S. government is saying little. The military did not even publicly acknowledge holding al-Hajj until last April, when it released a list of Guantanamo detainees in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by The Associated Press.

But military documents sketch at least a partial outline of al-Hajj’s experiences at Guantanamo and the U.S. grounds for holding him — that he transported money between 1996 and 2000 for a defunct charity that allegedly provided money to militant groups, and that he met a "senior al-Qaida lieutenant."

When he appeared before a military review panel at this remote U.S. military base in August 2005, al-Hajj, citing the advice of his attorney, declined to respond to questions. But he denied any connection to terrorism.

"With all due respect, a mistake has been made because I have never been a member of any terrorist group," he said, according to a transcript released the following year. "I can say without hesitation that I am not a threat to the United States."

During the hearing, aimed at determining whether al-Hajj posed a threat to the United States or possessed intelligence value, al-Hajj wore a white jumpsuit reserved for the "most compliant" detainees. An officer told the tribunal that al-Hajj was leading Islamic prayer sessions and teaching other prisoners English.

His colleagues at Al-Jazeera claim his detention is American harassment of an Arabic TV network whose coverage has long angered U.S. officials. Near the entrance to the network’s Khartoum bureau a banner saying "Free Sami al-Hajj" hangs alongside his photo.

Lamis Andoni, a Middle East analyst for the network who helped organize a campaign for al-Hajj’s release, noted the network’s sour relationship with the American government. In April 2003, an Al-Jazeera journalist was killed when the network’s Baghdad bureau was struck during a U.S. bombing campaign. In November 2001, a U.S. missile destroyed Al-Jazeera’s office in Kabul, Afghanistan. The U.S. claims both attacks were mistakes.

"When you are targeted once, it could be a mistake," Andoni said in an interview from Amman, Jordan. "But when you are bombed twice, it’s something else."

"I consider the information that we obtained from him to be useful," Paul Rester, director of the Joint Intelligence Group at the prison, said in an interview at Guantanamo Bay. Rester refused to elaborate or even to comment on the allegations aired at the 2005 hearing.

International human rights and press freedom groups condemn al-Hajj’s imprisonment. Reporters Without Borders cited his case when it dropped the United States nine places to 53rd in its 2006 Worldwide Press Freedom Index.

The U.S. military says that in the 1990s, al-Hajj was an executive assistant at a Qatar-based beverage company that provided support to Muslim fighters in Bosnia and Chechnya. The U.S. says 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 authorities say funded militant groups.

It was also 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.

Stafford Smith said al-Hajj did not routinely transport money but that he and his wife once carried $220,000 from Qatar to Azerbaijan for his boss at the beverage company — and that he even declared the cash to customs.

"Sami was only doing what he was told by his boss," Stafford Smith said.

He said al-Hajj, while working for the beverage company, met Salim only once, when he was sent to pick him up at the airport in Qatar in 1998. During the drive, the two discussed schools and housing, the attorney said.

Al-Hajj, who has a wife and son in Qatar, will mark his fifth anniversary in Guantanamo in June.

"You will continue to be kept at Guantanamo Bay for at least one more year," the military told al-Hajj in the formal notice.

Ben Fox reported for this story from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Alfred de Montesquiou from Khartoum, Sudan.