Salahi was asked about innocuous exchanges from intercepted e-mails and phone calls, as if they had been conducted in code. In 2005, during the military hearing, Salahi had urged the presiding officer not to send him back to Mauritania. At first I thought it was an armed robbery, but, when the airport police approached, the guy behind me flashed a magic badge, which immediately made the policemen retreat. Salahi and his brothers were thrown into the back of a van and driven to a detention site. It was Ramadan again. In 1998, he had travelled to Afghanistan, and spent a year in Al Qaeda training camps, where he learned to handle weapons and explosives. Military personnel took his biometric information, and logged his health problemsincluding a damaged sciatic nervethen led him to a cell. He was guilty of nothing, Abdellahi told me, and he had not been charged with a crime. Their questions were much the same, Salahi wrote, but the whole environmental setup made me very skeptical toward the honesty and humanity of the U.S. interrogators. They went through checklists of questions that had been developed by their superiors, and seemed impervious to nuance, or to the notion that some detainees may have been sent there in error. The night terrors kept coming. It was the pretty blond interrogator bringing in these disks with footage from Al Qaeda and Taliban training camps in Afghanistan, Wood recalled. When Wood tried to search for 760 in Guantnamos detainee database, he found nothing. In deliberations with Al Qaeda leaders, he decided that the safest place was Iran. (ge) A man who is widely regarded as the most tortured prisoner in the history . Salahi saw a mentally ill old man subjected to this method. On May 22nd, Salahis lead F.B.I. If the detainee dies, youre doing it wrong. (Fredman has disputed the accuracy of the meeting minutes. WASHINGTON - The U.S. government has transferred Mohamedou Ould Slahi to his native Mauritania, where he is to be reunited with his family. The interrogator added that, if Salahi didnt start talking, he would be buried on Christian, sovereign American soil., On August 2nd, military records show, an interrogator told Salahi that he and his colleagues are sick of hearing the same lies over and over and over and are seriously considering washing their hands of him. The Mauritanian is stunningly tragic and leaves audiences with a host of questions about how its events were allowed to take place, but another notable issue is why the Obama administration blocked Mohamedou Ould Slahi's release from Guantanamo Bay. Then the men were loaded onto an airplane. Every day, Mariem Mint Elwadia asked God for the same thing: She wanted to see her son, Mohamedou Ould Slahi, just one . Once every fifteen minutes, a prisoner tried to hang himself by tying his sheet around his neck and fastening it through the mesh of the cage wall, James Yee, an Army captain who served as the Muslim chaplain in Guantnamo, recalled in his memoir, For God and Country, from 2005. Salahi and Wood sat in front of a laptop, with the Webcam on, and Skyped into a room in Washington. But sometimes, after coperating, hed get depressed and anxious, and say, Im a bad Muslim, Wood told me. In Mauritania, Abdellahis men detained Salahis wife and brothers and interrogated them about the Millennium Plot. And Mohamedou probably thought I was thinking the same thingthat, to me, he was just a job, and nothing more. So, during one of his final shifts, Wood broke protocol and showed Salahi a photo of Summer. From the floor of Parliament, Badre Eddine noted that Mauritania has no extradition treaty with the United States. Alicia Florrick has been a good wife to her husband, a former state's attorney . Yacoub climbed into the passenger seat. Mohamedou Ould Salahi was born in Rosso, Mauritania, the ninth of twelve children of a camel herder. Through the window I started to see the sand-covered small villages around Nouakchott, as bleak as their prospects, he wrote. 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. It was my way of telling him, Man, I trust you. The Corrupt World Behind the Murdaugh Murders. . According to The Exile, a comprehensive account of post-9/11 Al Qaeda, by the investigative journalists Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy, who gained access to Abu Hafss diaries, he ghostwrote most of Osamas speeches, religious judgments, and press releases. In 1998, bin Laden wrote Abu Hafs into his will. The next time the Red Cross delegation visited Guantnamo, a representative reported that medical files are being used by interrogators to gain information in developing an interrogation plan., Female interrogators groped him. Allah! He was held in Guantanamo Bay from. Wood became secretive about his calls with Salahi; Wendy began to suspect that he was having an affair. Look him up, dude. Later that day, Neely and his partner brought an elderly detainee to the holding area and forced him to his knees. He said he needs fuel, Salahi explained to Abdellahi. For the next month, he was kept in total darkness; his only way of knowing day from night was to look into the toilet and see if there was brightness at the end of the drain. Salahi, I wish I were not part of this shit, he said. Slahi's rare contacts with the cousin, and an occasion in which he allowed travelers from near his hometown to stay the night only to learn they were Al Qaeda soldiers were among the . Medical personnel had noted that Salahi had sciatic-nerve issues; now interrogators kept him in stress positions that exacerbated them. Force-feeding during the daylight hours of Ramadan, when Muslims are supposed to fast. 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. He devoured volumes on history, foreign affairs, politics, civil rightspretty much any type of book you could think of, other than, like, romance novels, he said. How does he live? Der hat eine recht interessante Vita, war bei Al-Qaida ttig und soll whrend seiner . He left the Oregon National Guard, and started working night shifts at a twenty-four-hour gym near Portland. In the dark you create things out of what little you have., Had I done what they accused me of, I would have relieved myself on day one, Salahi wrote in his diary. They punched Salahi in the face and the ribs, then covered his eyes with blackout goggles, his ears with earmuffs, and his head with a bag. In his home country, Neely said, this man had seen some of his friends and family members executed on their knees. The mans response was hardly unique; a military document, drafted ten days later for the base commander, noted that the detainees think they are being taken to be shot., Officially, the job of the Internal Reaction Force was to restrain unruly detainees, to prevent them from injuring themselves or the guards. An officer shouted Code Red! into a radio, and the Internal Reaction Force team raced to the scene and hog-tied him. Military doctors offered to take care of it, but Salahi declined; his release date was only a couple of months away, and he wanted to get the surgery on his own terms, once he was free. Mohamedou Ould Salahi, from Mauritania, was born in 1970. You must forget your fear to achieve anything., Last summer, Salahi completed an online course to become a certified life coach. They took off from Uzbekistan and flew into northern Afghanistan, over the snow-capped mountains of the Hindu Kush. One night in October, 2016, Woods phone rang while he was in a Safeway in Portland. At other times, the questions originated from material on his hard drive, which the F.B.I. Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a Mauritanian who lived briefly in Montreal, has launched a $30-million lawsuit against the federal government. No chairs, no lying down, no more access to his prescription pain medication. See if you think his captivity was just. Recently released "Guantnamo Diary" author Mohamedou Slahi gives a heartfelt thanks to his supporters in this moving new video, filmed where he belongs: at home with his family. Government officials suggested that Yee was running an elaborate spy ringthat he and other Muslims had infiltrated the military, and represented the gravest insider threat since the Cold War. See what it did to his family., A job posting depicts life as an intelligence officer in Guantnamo Bay as a rewarding challenge with incredible surroundingssunsets, beaches, iguanas, pristine Caribbean blue. There, Abu Hafs spent two months in custody, as a formality. Mohamedou was . By the time Wood left, he had come to accept his guards and interrogators as family. (All charges were later dropped, and Yee was honorably discharged. Abu Hafs, Salahis cousin and a senior Al Qaeda official, evaded capture. Around that time, after a long period without contact, Abu Hafs called Salahi from bin Ladens satellite phone. He signed it. On December 19th, Abu Hafs boarded a bus in Quetta, carrying a fake passport and a suitcase full of cash. (The C.I.A. The Bush Administration had decided that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to the war on terror, which meant that the men captured abroad could be deprived of the rights of prisoners of war. Have you heard of Nelson Mandela? Wood recalled Salahi saying. During the Amnesty International live stream, someone on Twitter commented that, of the two of them, Wood looked like the detainee. The Mauritanian tells the true story of Mohamedou Ould Salahi - played by Tahar Rahim in a Bafta-nominated turn - a man from the northwestern African state of the title, whose tenuous. I was scared to ask too many questions, I was scared to read a book on Islam while I was in there, or show too much interest., Woods concerns were not unjustified. Salahis family wasnt notified of his rendition, and so they were surprised that Abdellahi refused to let them see him. There were no weapons of mass destruction. Mohamedou Ould Slahi was sent to his home country of Mauritania after 14 years of imprisonment. 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. A government report describes the facility as having been modified in such a way as to reduce as much outside stimuli as possible, with doors that had been sealed to a point that allows no light to enter the room. Inside, the walls were covered with white paint or paper to further eliminate objects the detainee may concentrate on. There was an eyebolt for shackling him to the floor, and speakers for bombarding him with sound. It was the spring of 2004. (Until 2007, a terrorist sanctions list included Salahis name as an alias for Abu Hafs.). One day, German officers questioned one of Salahis friends. Salahi had been living in a cell practically since the beginning of the invasion, nine months earlier. The 2021 legal drama follows the true story of the aforementioned protagonist (played by Tahar Rahim), a man who was arrested, taken from his . Mohamedou Ould Slahi, 45, was subjected in 2003 to a special interrogation at Guantnamo Bay. Near the airport parking lot, Salahi stood in a light-blue boubou, the traditional Mauritanian robe, with a turban to obscure his identity. He was never charged with a crime, although the U.S. government suspected him of involvement in the September 11th attacks. Its not looking good, the presiding military officer replied. Soon afterward, Wood learned that the imam, a Somali immigrant who practiced a conservative strain of Islam known as Salafism, had been the subject of F.B.I. He wasnt sure what he wanted out of the visithe knew only that curiosity eclipsed his misgivings. He was left for hours in the Caribbean sun. And Steves interest is to impress the girls. So that scared me away, he said. Its not just, Yes, I did! No, it doesnt work that way: you have to make up a complete story that makes sense to the dumbest dummies. His mother was dead, and so was one of his brothers, but there were teen-age nieces and nephews whom he was meeting for the first time. And Jodie Foster, 58, was spotted enjoying some. The F.B.I. . A Guantanamo bay convict claims he was forced to have sex with female interrogators in his recently published memoir. The lack of progress, development, and freedom in Mauritanian society inspired in Salahi a righteous anger toward autocracy and corruption, and a desire to fight for something bigger than himself. What would we tell the Mauritanians? the diplomat replied. Forces recruits who speak grammatically incorrectly, he wrote on a scrap of paper inside his cell. Wood started sporadically attending prayers. Bet youll think twice next time about saying you know me, he said, laughing. Eventually, one of the interrogators told Salahi that he was going to be sent to Mauritania for more questioning. The U.S. military prison's leadership considered Mohamedou Salahi to be its highest-value detainee. (Abdellahi says that, after Salahi disappeared, the family never contacted him.) All I had were some numbers of business partners in Mauritania and Germany, he later wrote, but I didnt want the U.S. government harassing those peaceful people just because I had their numbers in my phone. One of the contacts was listed as P.C. Walid, who was sixteen, stayed behind. Abu Hafs wouldnt say which countries he had travelled throughonly that, in the first two, the Mauritanian Ambassador met him on the tarmac, walked him through the airport, and stayed with him until he got on the next plane. It was silly, but if you get scared you are not you anymore. Few people worked out at two or three in the morning, so he had plenty of time to continue his self-education on global affairs. I was scared to hell, Salahi recalled at his hearing. But it stopped abruptly after a failed assassination attempt against the President, in 2011, which raised questions about whether he was cutting deals with Al Qaeda. I want to ask you a favor, if it is O.K. I have contact with Osama bin Ladens operative, who was helping launder money. The U.S. government gathered that in 1991, when Salahi was twenty, he swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden, and the following year he learned to handle weapons at an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. But, after Salahi returned to Germany, they had scarcely been in touch. Wahrheit macht frei, the officer saidthe truth sets you free. So, completely different goals in life., Sometimes Wood opened Salahis Quran to a random page and told him the verse number, and Salahi would recite it aloud from memory, first in Arabic, then in English. With a movie based on his ordeal. Once, on a technical assignment, Salahi had been photographed near the President of Mauritania; now the lead interrogator accused Salahi of having plotted to kill him. lawyer, said, according to the meeting minutes. But I changed my mind after Guantnamo, he told me. But it wasnt enough; the government wanted him to link other people in Canada to various plots. There, Schroen contacted the leaders of the Northern Alliance, an armed group that had spent years fighting the Taliban, with little external support. Another year passed. He also believed that Slahi's interrogators had broken the law tormenting him physically and sexually, and. 17k Followers, 1,031 Following, 371 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Mohamedou Ould Salahi (@mohamedououldsalahi) came to much the same conclusion.) . But, hey, I have to cope with it. It was cheaper to fly to Dakar than to Nouakchott, and his brothers drove three hundred miles to meet him there. You must be very tough. By 1990, the Soviets had withdrawn from Afghanistan, but Al Qaeda was still fighting against the Communist Afghan government that the Soviets had installed. After 14 years. But, when he wanted to engage, he spoke with a worldly, provocative humor that Wood found appealing. Soon afterward, they travelled together to Sudan, where bin Laden ran a construction company and a jihadi training camp, and sped around Khartoum in bin Ladens white Mercedes. Under the new regime, Abdellahi, the spy chief, was demoted, and given the task of investigating corruption and malfeasance within the security services; the standard path for accountability required Abdellahi to investigate himself. (During the layover in Casablanca, he had drunk a Red Bull and twenty-two shots of espresso.) Ad Choices. The United States released Mohamedou Ould Slahi, the author of a renowned prison memoir, after he was detained for more than 14 years in Jordan, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo, and returned him. Mr Slahi was release on Monday 17 October after being held in Guantanamo Bay for 14 years without charge. He was not happyhe didnt want to leave, Abdellahi told me. El delito por el que Mohamedou es acusado es haber sido un miembro activo de al Qaeda, haber recibido entrenamiento en Afganistn a principios de los 90, reclutar a tres de los . Guantanamo Diary Revisited recounts the experience of Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a citizen of Mauritania, who was imprisoned at the Guantnamo Bay facility from 2002 to 2016, accused by American. There are so many Ahmeds that itll be difficult for them to put him on the no-fly list, Salahi joked. And then it behaves the same way as the last. When he asked the new regime about Salahi, he said, they just replied, We didnt kidnap himit was the previous government that did it. The United States leases the land beneath the Guantnamo Bay detention facility from Cuba, for four thousand and eighty-five dollars a year, under an agreement signed after the Spanish-American War. No adult in Woods life had ever looked so frightened and so vulnerable. Mohamedou Salahi spent more than fourteen years in detention at Guantnamo Bay, where he was repeatedly tortured. 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