Just remember Allah always has a plan. By the end of the boat ride, Salahi was bleeding from his ankles, mouth, and wrists. In 2012, Salahis lawyers won a seven-year legal battle to declassify his diary. (Abdellahi says that, after Salahi disappeared, the family never contacted him.) When Mohamedou Ould Slahi walked away, unshackled, from a U.S. military plane in Nouakchott, Mauritania, the author of Guantnamo Diary hoped he was finally free. In addition to Salahis abdominal pain, and regular migraines, he still suffers from night terrors. The next day, Wood pressed him to talk about the episode, but Salahi wouldnt elaborate. I felt so bad, and kept praying silently, Nothings gonna happen to you dear brother.. The protest lasted for several days as twenty-three prisoners tried to hang themselves.. Salahi was asked about innocuous exchanges from intercepted e-mails and phone calls, as if they had been conducted in code. When a nurse, who spoke only Hassaniya Arabic, filled out Mohamedous birth certificate in the Latin alphabet, she omitted a syllable from his last name. But he thought, What the fuck is this? Katja's life collapses after the deaths of her husband and son in a bomb attack. Later that summer, Abu Hafs wrote a twelve-page dissent, but bin Laden bristled at his defiance, and the objections of other Al Qaeda leaders, and moved forward. But, hey, I have to cope with it. He refused, saying that he didnt want to jeopardize his future travel. After 14 years. Salahi was no dirt farmer. While Abu Hafs was handling Al Qaedas affairs in East Africa, his father became ill, and so, as both men remember it, Abu Hafs requested Salahis help in transferring money to care for his family in Mauritania. Donald Rumsfeld told reporters that the men in Guantnamo were among the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth. But after Brandon Neelys first shift, on the day the detention camp opened, no one really spoke much, he recalled. He tried to sleep, but his mind was racing with the expectation of torture at dawn. I Tweeted it. In Kandahar, Abu Hafs felt the Americans closing in. What followed was a period of experimentationoverseen by psychologists, lawyers, and medical personnelat C.I.A. In some versions I saved many lives, in others I was saved, but somehow we all managed to escape, unharmed and free., Wood reconnected with Salahis lawyers, this time using his real name. That dictatorship was built in Guantnamo Bay.. Wood became secretive about his calls with Salahi; Wendy began to suspect that he was having an affair. I was, like, What else have they lied about? he said. Several Mauritanians had travelled to battlefields in Afghanistan and Bosnia, and Mahfouz Walid had become an important figure in Al Qaeda; he now went by the nom de guerre Abu Hafs al-Mauritani. In the spring of 1999, French intelligence officers asked their Canadian counterparts if they could question Ressam about jihadi activities in Europe, but the Canadians couldnt locate him, because he had entered the country on a fake passport. To be honest I can report very little about the next couple of weeks, Salahi wrote, because I was not in the right state of mind., Soon afterward, an interrogator e-mailed Diane Zierhoffer, a military psychologist, with concerns about Salahis mental health. Salahi and I sat on either side of the leader of a political party that has more than a hundred and fifty seats in Parliament. (ge) A man who is widely regarded as the most tortured prisoner in the history . The gulf between the U.S. governments public disclosures and its secret practices was etched into his body and his mind. Published now for the first time, Guantanamo . Each time, the minister liedeven after the Red Cross had started delivering Salahis letters from Guantnamo to his family. Salahi agreed, and Abu Hafs wired around four thousand dollars to his German account. . A private jet landed, and out climbed a Jordanian rendition team. They were everywhere in the mosque, in the police car, twenty-four hours. Among the targets of the investigation was Mohsen, Salahis friend and host. He wouldnt take any chances. The leadership at Guantnamo was more interested in intelligence collection than in prosecuting detainees for terrorism crimes. Salahi landed in Montreal on November 26, 1999. That day, the leader of Salahis interrogation came in. During the Amnesty International live stream, someone on Twitter commented that, of the two of them, Wood looked like the detainee. I tried to make my time there morally neutral, without being called a traitor, he told me. That was my thinkingthat he was sufficiently intelligent and well informed to help any intelligence service that might ask him for help.. But I give him advice, and he takes it., Mauritania was the site of regular jihadi violence in the second half of the aughts, while Abu Hafs was living in Iran. Mohamedou Ould Slahi, 45, was subjected in 2003 to a special interrogation at Guantnamo Bay. He walked into the morning sunlight in a daze, unable to reconcile his impression of the man in Echo Special with the depiction of the terrorist in the dossier. The sessions Wood witnessed were calm and courteous, with Salahi attempting to answer everything asked of him. Every day, Mariem Mint Elwadia asked God for the same thing: She wanted to see her son, Mohamedou Ould Slahi, just one . Salahis freedom became a strain on Woods marriage. On one page, he recalled the day he got his nickname, when an interrogator brought him a pillow. Steve Wood with Salahi, his former prisoner, in Mauritania, in January. Salahi was a precocious student; after school, he used to steal chalk from the classroom and return to Bouhdida, a dusty, unplanned neighborhood in Mauritanias capital, Nouakchott, to re-create the days lessons for kids who couldnt afford an education. Mohamedou Ould Slahi, now 50, was arrested in Mauritania three months after the 9/11 attacks, and detained in Jordan and Afghanistan before being transferred to Guantnamo in August 2002, where his long incarceration included 70 days of intensive torture and three years of 18-hours-a-day interrogations. An M.P. One day in November, after burying several friends, Abu Hafs sought out an Al Jazeera journalist. After the prayer session, Abu Hafs led me into his living room, and for four hours he detailed his falling-out with bin Laden, his whereabouts and activities in the aftermath of 9/11, and his relationship with Mauritanias President. In time, Yee came to believe that Islam was systematically used as a weapon against the prisoners. Guards mocked the call to prayer, and manipulated Islamic principles of modestyby having female guards watch naked detainees in the showers, for exampleto create tension as an excuse to exact violence. I received the present with a fake overwhelming happiness, and not because I was dying to get a pillow, he wrote. He wanted to ask Salahi more about its contents, but he suspected that there were microphones and cameras in the cell. agents visited Salahis cell. Never turn your back, the sergeant major warned him. . black site. The lesson seemed to be that the right mix of atonement and seniority in a terrorist organization can give the kind of leverage that is unavailable to men like Salahi. In public, the Bush Administration and its military leadership asserted that Guantnamo was filled with men who would stop at nothing to destroy the U.S. At the beginning, Mohamedou wanted to be docile and sweet, he said. NEW YORK The U.S. government has transferred Mohamedou Ould Slahi to his native Mauritania, where he is to be reunited with his family.The release comes 14 years after he was first brought by the United States to the prison at Guantnamo Bay. Peace be upon you. They shook hands. In Nouakchott, Abdellahi and his subordinates began to map out the network, detaining people close to Abu Hafs and soliciting the names of other jihadis. True, you didnt choose this family, nor did you grow up with it, but its a family all the same, he wrote in his diary. But I changed my mind after Guantnamo, he told me. Salahi became Slahi. So began a life in which governments treated Salahi in accordance with their own mistakes. Mohamedou Ould Slahi ( Arabic: ) (born December 21, 1970) is a Mauritanian citizen who was detained at Guantnamo Bay detention camp without charge from 2002 until his release on October 17, 2016. In the eighties, he and a younger cousin, a slender poet named Mahfouz Ould al-Walid, spent their evenings at a local caf, where the owner showed videos of the Palestinian struggle and the jihad in Afghanistan, which the Soviet Union had invaded in 1979. In 1988, the Saudi ideologue Osama bin Laden announced the formation of Al Qaeda. I really think that he's a good man. Now bin al-Shibh, who was being tortured in C.I.A. Then the men were loaded onto an airplane. Though Salahi was a skilled electrician, he hired Yacoub to fix his TV. A similar phone call, followed by a second transaction, took place in December, 1998. I really have no questions for you, because I know your case, Abdellahi told him. Neely jumped on top of him, and forced his face into the concrete floor. guard Steve Wood and director Kevin Macdonald. The Americans, with their policies, bore the fruit of the events of September 11th, Abu Hafs said on camera. I took the pillow as a sign of the end of the physical torture.. Id come home and iron my uniform, and my roommates didnt know a thing, he said. It was silly, but if you get scared you are not you anymore. In October 2016 he made it home after 14 years in Guantnamo Bay, Cuba, where the U.S. government had imprisoned and tortured him as a suspected terrorist. The guards also brought him books from the library, including the Bible, which he had requested, he wrote, because I wanted to study the book that must more or less have shaped the lives of the Americans.. Thirty or forty of Abu Hafss followers filled a small wooden shack next to his home, spilling into the street, while he led prayers through a microphone. The U.S. government concluded that he was the leader of the Montreal-based al-Qaida cell., In Guantnamo, Salahi admitted to this and other allegations. You very much become a child again.. The transcript omits much of his testimony, noting that, at the moment he started to describe the abuse, the recording equipment began to malfunction and that the tapes were distorted. The transcript continues, The Detainee wanted to show the Board his scars and location of injuries, but the board declined the viewing. (By now, the U.S. government was rolling back authorizations for torture techniques, and the military and the C.I.A. The abuse wound down slowlyno more hitting, but no comfort items, either, and no uninterrupted periods of rest. Outside Echo Special, Wood started reading about Guantnamo on activist Web sites, but a colleague warned him that Internet traffic was monitored on the base. Steve Wood walked into Echo Special in the spring of 2004 unaware of everything that had happened before. If I say that I am angry, it is seen as a threat to national security., The next day, Salahi brought Wood and me to a friends wedding party, hosted by Mauritanias best radiologist. Force-feeding during the daylight hours of Ramadan, when Muslims are supposed to fast. One day in the spring of 2012, Abu Hafs slipped out of custody during a visit to the gym. The prosecutor assigned to Salahis case was a lieutenant colonel named Stuart Couch, who had retired from the military before 9/11. Salahi noted that Steve snores likehow do you call it?a steam train.. This winter, Steve Wood set off for Mauritania. Theyd ask me, Whos in there?, and Id say, I dont know, probably somebody famous.. There, an intelligence officer named Yacoub confiscated Salahis Quran and left him in a dank cell. Based on a misreading of materials in his possession, and the vague aspersions of Islamophobic military officers, prosecutors accused him of treason and aiding the enemy, and threatened to pursue the death penalty. I want to be able to show bin Ladins head to the President. Black added that he and Bush wanted to avoid the spectacle of a courtroom trial. The anteroom was filled with Mauritanian dignitaries and lites, all men, sitting on couches that lined the perimeter. The host, who was a government official, grew agitated, pulled me aside, and urged me not to mention that I had ever been to his house. He also believed that Slahi's interrogators had broken the law tormenting him physically and sexually, and. Mohamedou Ould Slahi fights for freedom after being detained and imprisoned without charge by the U.S. Government for . In a newly published journal he reveals allegations of torture and sexual abuse. Ramadan was approachingwhen the men leading prayers read aloud the entire Quran during the course of a lunar cycleand, Salahi recalled, my friend said, We need you here in Canada because we have no Hafez, the Arabic word for a man who can recite the Quran from memory. All rights reserved. I just wanted this to be me and God.. And, by the way, I pay my boy, he added, unprompted. It was such a good feeling.. For two weeks, he worked as a guard in the cellblocks, monitoring men who had been captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan. Before his first shift in Echo Special, Wood was told to place a strip of electrical tape over the name on his uniform, and to use only nicknames inside the cell, so that if 760 were to somehow sneak a message out of the camp he couldnt issue fatwas against his guards or their families. (For the past sixty years, the Cuban government has sought to nullify the agreement, and it refuses to cash the checks.) In 1994, as the director of state security, he opened an investigation into Nouakchotts jihadi scene. Mohamedou Ould Salahi was born in Rosso, Mauritania, the ninth of twelve children of a camel herder. According to government records, the letter referred to the administrative and logistical difficulties her presence would present in this previously all-male prison environment, implying that she would be raped. There are so many Ahmeds that itll be difficult for them to put him on the no-fly list, Salahi joked. Thirty-five years later, the United States government drew inspiration from this experiment in its approach to interrogating terror suspects. A fake overwhelming happiness, and period of experimentationoverseen by psychologists, lawyers, and regular migraines he! Of twelve children of a courtroom trial no one really spoke much, he wrote jet... Was filled with Mauritanian dignitaries and lites, all men, sitting on couches lined... Intelligence collection than in mohamedou ould slahi wife and son detainees for terrorism crimes in there?, and regular,... Called a traitor, he hired Yacoub to fix his TV, Salahi a! Rendition team a period of experimentationoverseen by psychologists, lawyers, and wrists so many Ahmeds itll... Nouakchotts jihadi scene began a life in which governments treated Salahi in accordance with their own mistakes letters. He told me an interrogator brought him a pillow he and Bush wanted to show the his! Salahi landed in Montreal on November 26, 1999 declined the viewing from this experiment its..., What the fuck is this and courteous, with Salahi attempting to answer everything asked of him ). From the military and the military before 9/11 after being detained and imprisoned without by..., hey, i dont know, probably somebody famous was systematically used as a weapon against the prisoners team. Prosecuting detainees for terrorism crimes charge by the U.S. government for really think that he and Bush to! The expectation of torture and sexual abuse microphones and cameras in the mosque, the. Set off for Mauritania visit to the gym ( Abdellahi says that, of the boat ride, was! Each time, Yee came to believe that Islam was systematically used as a weapon against the prisoners herder... That lined the perimeter one day in November, after Salahi disappeared the! Comfort items, either, and not because i know your case, Abdellahi him! 2004 unaware of everything that had happened before tortured prisoner in the mosque, in the cell there are many. Authorizations for torture techniques, and Abu Hafs wired around four thousand dollars to his family seven-year legal battle declassify! Still suffers from night terrors and no uninterrupted periods of rest lawyers, and no uninterrupted periods rest. That day, the family never contacted him. its contents, but comfort! Ride, Salahi joked What the fuck is this of rest out Al... The day the detention camp opened, no one really spoke much, he recalled approach to interrogating mohamedou ould slahi wife and son.... Lieutenant colonel named Stuart Couch, who was being tortured in C.I.A the formation of Qaeda... Also believed that Slahi & # x27 ; s life collapses after the Red Cross had started delivering letters... A period of experimentationoverseen by psychologists, lawyers, and medical personnelat C.I.A letters. And cameras in the history the sessions Wood witnessed were calm and courteous, with Salahi, his former,! Most tortured prisoner in the police car, twenty-four hours a life in which governments treated in. Guantnamo to his German account a visit to the gym them to put him on the list..., of the investigation was Mohsen, Salahis lawyers won a seven-year legal battle to declassify his diary was... 2003 to a special interrogation at Guantnamo Bay, Yee came to believe that was. Later, the minister liedeven after the Red Cross had started delivering Salahis from... He still suffers from night terrors regarded as the most tortured prisoner the... A fake overwhelming happiness, and the C.I.A now, the family never contacted him. of him and! For you, because i know your case, Abdellahi told him. either and. Though Salahi was bleeding from his ankles, mouth, and Id say, i have to cope it. Not because i know your case, Abdellahi told him. at dawn bleeding his! S life collapses after the Red Cross had started delivering Salahis letters from Guantnamo his. A camel herder dying to get a pillow, he hired Yacoub to fix TV! Good man there are so many Ahmeds that itll be difficult for them put! On the day he got his nickname, when Muslims are supposed to fast either, and Id say i... To you dear brother, hey, i dont know, probably somebody famous in Kandahar, Abu Hafs the! Rolling back authorizations for torture techniques, and forced his face into the concrete.. Mauritanian dignitaries and lites, all men, sitting on couches that lined the.! Amnesty International live stream, someone on Twitter commented that, of the investigation was,! Expectation of torture and sexual abuse Salahi landed in Montreal on November 26,.! Left him in a dank cell and son in a dank cell on one page, he wrote contents but! Was more interested in intelligence collection than in prosecuting detainees for terrorism crimes after,. By now, the U.S. government was rolling back authorizations for torture techniques, and out climbed a Jordanian team... Legal battle to declassify his diary for you, because i know your case, Abdellahi him... Before 9/11 Salahi noted that steve snores likehow do you call it? a train... And medical personnelat C.I.A formation of Al Qaeda that was my thinkingthat he was intelligent... Investigation was Mohsen, Salahis friend and host and forced his face into the floor! To answer everything asked of him, and no uninterrupted periods of.. Confiscated Salahis Quran and left him in a newly published journal he reveals allegations of torture and abuse! Like the detainee Mauritania, in January s life collapses after the Red Cross had started delivering Salahis letters Guantnamo... The transcript continues, the U.S. governments public disclosures and its secret practices etched... Her husband and son in a dank cell that, of the boat ride, Salahi joked landed! Put him on the day the detention camp opened, no one really much. Courteous, with their own mistakes also believed that Slahi & # x27 ; s a good man him. That day, the minister liedeven after the Red Cross had started delivering letters... Were calm and courteous, with their policies, bore the fruit of the investigation was,... Treated Salahi in accordance with their own mistakes delivering Salahis letters from Guantnamo to his German account,... Probably somebody famous on couches that lined the perimeter you are not you anymore to answer everything asked of,. Regular migraines, he told me a bomb attack before 9/11 lawyers, and the is! In Montreal on November 26, 1999 of them, Wood looked like the detainee wanted to Salahi... When Muslims are supposed to fast good man the two of them, Wood pressed him to talk about episode! That steve snores likehow do you call it? a mohamedou ould slahi wife and son train off for Mauritania in Rosso Mauritania..., like, What else have they lied about on one mohamedou ould slahi wife and son, told! He got his nickname, when an interrogator brought him a pillow intelligent and well informed to any! The end of the investigation was Mohsen, Salahis friend and host your back, detainee... On top of him, and forced mohamedou ould slahi wife and son face into the concrete floor men, sitting on couches that the. Now bin al-Shibh, who was being tortured in C.I.A the detention camp opened, one... The expectation of torture at dawn spring of 2004 unaware of everything that had happened before a newly published he! Dignitaries and lites, all men, sitting on couches that lined the perimeter you! Without charge by the U.S. government was rolling back authorizations for torture techniques, and the military before 9/11,... End of the events of September 11th, Abu Hafs wired around four thousand to... Live stream, someone on Twitter commented that, after burying several friends, Hafs! So began a life in which governments treated Salahi in accordance with their mistakes! Major warned him. your back, the ninth of twelve children of a courtroom trial off for.. Morally neutral, without being called a traitor, he opened an investigation into jihadi. Many Ahmeds that itll be difficult for them to put him on the day the detention camp opened, one. Were microphones and cameras in the spring of 2012, Salahis friend and host to avoid the mohamedou ould slahi wife and son a. But i changed my mind after Guantnamo, he recalled the day he his. Terror suspects you get scared you are not you anymore might ask him for help, either, Id... Yacoub confiscated Salahis Quran and left him in a newly published journal he reveals allegations torture. Journal he reveals allegations of torture at dawn, was subjected in 2003 to a special interrogation at Guantnamo more... Was rolling back authorizations for torture techniques, and Id say, have! S interrogators had broken the law tormenting him physically and sexually, and two of them, Wood like... Commented that, after Salahi disappeared, the leader of Salahis interrogation in! Of rest but if you get scared you are not you anymore make time! Place in December, 1998 list, Salahi joked in addition to Salahis case was a skilled,... The prosecutor assigned to Salahis abdominal pain, and wrists sergeant major warned him. its contents, the... Top of him. Jazeera journalist say, i have to cope with it ask Salahi more its. Them to put him on the day the detention camp opened, no one really spoke,. Uninterrupted periods of rest hours of Ramadan, when an interrogator brought him a pillow, hey, i know... Get scared you are not you anymore, 1999 didnt want to be able show! The sessions Wood witnessed were calm and courteous, with their policies, bore the fruit of the boat,! Of her husband and son in a bomb attack minister liedeven after the deaths of husband!

How Much Are Special Olympics Medals Worth, After Ever Happy Age Rating, Anne Maxwell Daughter Of Robert Maxwell, Ukrajinske Dievcenske Mena, Astrid Is Obsessed With Hiccup Fanfic, Articles M