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Mohamedou Slahi, Author of “Guantánamo Diary,” to Get Hearing on Possible Release

Lawyers for Mohamedou Slahi say they’ve been seeking the hearing with the prison’s Periodic Review Board for years.

Murtaza Hussain

March 15 2016, 1:03 p.m.

The younger brother of Mohamedou Ould Slahi, Yahdih Ould Slahi poses with a copy of Mohamedou's prison memoir 'Guantanamo Diary' open to show pages that were redacted by the US government in London on January 20, 2015. The family and supporters of "one of the most abused prisoners in Guantanamo" on January 20 launched a new celebrity-backed campaign demanding his release, coinciding with the publication of his prison diary. Mohamedou Ould Slahi was detained in his home country of Mauritania following the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001, on suspicion of involvement in an unsuccessful plot to bomb Los Angeles in 1999, and was taken to Guantanamo in 2002. US district court judge James Robertson ordered that Slahi be released in 2010 due to lack of evidence that he was directly involved in al-Qaeda terror plots, but he remains in detention after the Department of Justice appealed the decision. Human rights activist Larry Siems, the book's editor, Slahi's lawyer Nancy Hollander and brother Yahdih described the battle to release the memoirs and his current legal limbo during a press conference in London. Photo: Ben Stansall/Getty Images

MOHAMEDOU OULD SLAHI, the Guantánamo Bay detainee whose memoir, Guantánamo Diary, became a bestselling book, will receive a hearing with the prison’s Periodic Review Board this June that could result in his release.

The hearing date, handed down earlier this month, means that Slahi has finally been granted the review he and his lawyers have been seeking for years.

Slahi has been detained in Guantánamo for the past 14 years despite never having been charged with a crime. If he is cleared for transfer by the review board this June, the Department of Defense could release him from prison within 30 days.

Slahi, now 45, was renditioned into U.S custody after being arrested by authorities in his native Mauritania. After being shuttled to prisons in Jordan and Afghanistan, he arrived in Guantánamo in August 2002. As a detainee, he was subjected to years of torture by his American captors, events he wrote about in harrowing personal detail in Guantánamo Diary.

In 2010, a federal judge granted Slahi a writ of habeas corpus and ordered his release, a decision the government successfully appealed. He has remained in legal limbo ever since, but his upcoming PRB hearing could afford him a new chance to leave the prison.

“More than anything, Mohamedou wants to show the board that he poses no threat to the United States and should be allowed to return home to his family where he belongs,” said Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, in a statement announcing the hearing.

Although the government had once characterized Slahi as a major al Qaeda operative, officials involved in his case have since cast doubt on those claims. Former Guantánamo Chief Prosecutor Morris Davis has said that, during a 2007 interagency meeting, the government concluded it had no actual evidence of Slahi’s involvement in terrorism. Another former Guantánamo prosecutor, Stuart Couch, refused to prosecute Slahi’s case after learning that he had been tortured in custody.

Since his rendition and detention at Guantánamo, Slahi’s brother Yahdih Ould Slahi has been a vocal advocate for his imprisoned brother. Speaking to The Intercept from his home in Germany, Yahdih expressed hope that his brother would finally be released from prison. “Our family had great joy to hear that Mohammedou will have a hearing that might release him soon,” Yahdih said. “We’ve had patience for six years after he first was cleared in 2010. The state sold his life cheaply, but we are sure that Mohammedou will convince the court to acquit him because he did not commit any sin.”