Mohamedou Slahi, author of a bestselling memoir recounting his imprisonment and torture by the United States government, has been sent home to his native Mauritania after more than 14 years in Guantánamo Bay.
Slahi became the prison’s best-known detainee last year after publishing “Guantánamo Diary,” in which he recounts how he was rendered by the CIA in 2001 to prisons in Jordan and Afghanistan and then taken to Guantánamo. He wrote of being beaten, subjected to sleep deprivation and freezing temperatures, and blasted with music and other abuses, but also described with incredible openness and generosity his relationships with his American guards and interrogators.
Slahi’s lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union released a statement attributed to him saying, “I feel grateful and indebted to the people who have stood by me. I have come to learn that goodness is transnational, transcultural, and trans-ethnic. I’m thrilled to reunite with my family.”
Mohamedou Slahi in a photo distributed by the International Committee for the Red Cross.
Photo: International Committee for the Red Cross
In July, an interagency review board approved Slahi’s release, pending negotiations with his home country of Mauritania. In a hearing before the board in June, Slahi, through his representatives, had asked to be sent to rejoin family members in either Mauritania or Germany. He said he planned to start a small business, make use of computer skills he learned while imprisoned, and continue to write books.
A former guard submitted a letter in support of Slahi’s release to the board, saying that he would be glad to welcome him into his home. Military representatives described him as “one of the most compliant detainees” and “an advocate for peace” who “has pursued a new direction in life.”
“Eleven years ago Mohamedou wrote his ‘Guantánamo Diary’ as a gesture of faith in the power of the truth to overcome injustice,” said the writer Larry Siems, who edited the book, in a statement. “Today that faith has been rewarded.”
Slahi’s release leaves 60 men at Guantánamo, 20 of whom have been approved for transfer out of the prison.
Elizabeth Beavers, a senior campaigner with Amnesty International USA, said in a statement that “Slahi’s accounts of his treatment provided a chilling insight into the reality suffered by those unlawfully held for more than a decade without charge.” Each of the remaining men, she said, “must be charged and tried through fair trial in federal court, or be released to a country that will protect their human rights.”
The Intercept
Update, October 18: This piece has been updated to include a chart showing the status of the detainees who remain at Guantánamo.
Top photo: Two pages from “Guantanamo Diary” that were redacted by the U.S. government.
He was a mercenary jihadi fighting to destabilise the then-Soviet aligned Afghan government – so the US arrested, tortured and held without charges for 14 years a US-backed mercenary!
The victims change, but the USA’s game remains the same.
Finally some good news in the news. Very glad to read of his release. It certainly doesn’t sound like they ever had a case against him, but they tortured him anyways and stole 16 years of his life. When I think that my country, the USA would do such horrific things to a person without any solid evidence, flying in the face of the Magna Carta (right to a fair and speedy trial) it reveals that the USA has abandoned Western legal tradition that it was based upon through the 20th century and replaced it with some modern form of authoritarian militaristic fascism. America ain’t what it used to be. Too bad.
If you want another example of Guantanamo-like behavior (including the CIA black site program) you can look back to Stalin’s secret police during his purges – that kind of treatment, i.e. torture, was intended to prepare prisoners for show trials where they’d admit guilt prior to being executed.
The real agenda of the CIA torture program, implemented in late 2001 in collaboration with Mengele-like psychologists, was to get captured Al Qaeda members with links to 9/11 to admit to associations with Saddam’s Iraq in order to create a justification for an invasion of Iraq. That’s why the 9/11 investigations were taken out of the FBI’s hands and given to the CIA, and that’s why prosecutions in the United States court system were ruled out.
An additional factor is that prosecutions of Al Qaeda in open courts in the United States would have revealed the extent to which entities in Saudi Arabia financed and supported Al Qaeda and 9/11, from Royal Family members to billionaire businessmen.
The later expansion of the torture program in Iraq after the invasion was also not about fighting terrorism, it was about attacking the people of Iraq who were calling for an end to the occupation. The Iraq insurgency broke out in late 2003/early 2004 over the Paul Bremer CPA’s “100 Orders”, the most outrageous being the proposed Iraqi oil law, as described by writer Antonia Juhasz (author of The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time) :
The Guantanamo torture and abuse tactics were brought to Iraq by Rumsfeld and Miller in an attempt to crush the popular insurgency (which began as joint Sunni-Shia protests); the NSA was also brought in to create an Iraqi mass surveillance program (which later was implemented in the United States, jointly by Bush and Obama), and other tactics designed to pit Iraqi Shias vs. Iraqi Sunnis were used (divide and conquer). The torture program was not about getting information, it was just plain terrorism of the civilian population in an effort to halt the insurgency.
The architects of this program have not been prosecuted for their criminal unconstitutional activities. However, a lawsuit by Guantanamo detainees against the psychologists involved has resulted in CIA officials being forced to testify, which could open the door to further prosecution:
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/10/06/aclu-lawyers-will-get-question-ex-cia-officials-torture-case
>>> The real agenda of the CIA torture program, implemented in late 2001 in collaboration with Mengele-like psychologists, was to get captured Al Qaeda members with links to 9/11 to admit to associations with Saddam’s Iraq in order to create a justification for an invasion of Iraq. That’s why the 9/11 investigations were taken out of the FBI’s hands and given to the CIA, and that’s why prosecutions in the United States court system were ruled out.<<<
WRONG.
The reason for "no trial" was simple: The risk of the truth coming out was too great — a coup d'tat — as I summarized below.
The Truth would have called for the indictment of US officials at the highest levels.
IRAQ situation was ENTIRELY a geographical requirement — neutralize Iran. Divide Iranian forces between a Western and Easter Fronts so they couldn't effectively interfere with the coup d'tat and US Invasion of Afghan.
The Orwellian photo of the censored book raises a host of questions. Guantanamo Diary was indeed published with “redactions”. Which begs the question: if the author is released, is he going to be able to tell us what those censored sections were? Or is he still under threat — and if so, by what mechanism? Is Mauritania signed on to some agreement to put him in jail if he talks about what he underwent that they don’t want him to say? Is a team of paramilitaries simply going to invade Mauritania and haul him back to Guantanamo if he tries? Where does this go? It seems illuminating to find out, since I wonder how much of the decision to keep him for so long was based on what he might tell us.
>>> It seems illuminating to find out, since I wonder how much of the decision to keep him for so long was based on what he might tell us.<<<
It's more illuminating to know WHY the US was there to begin with. The rest is just a long line of dominoes.
Wanna know? It's like I said in my other post… go back to the Kissinger Cables of 1973. You can also look at 1979. Also, Karzai's words, himself… uttered on the record before the CFR before he was "installed."
>>> Slahi has never been charged with a crime by the United States. He admits to having joined and fought with the mujahideen in the early 90s against the Soviet-backed Afghan government, and U.S. authorities claim he helped recruit and facilitate travel for Al Qaeda fighters.<<<
You can't handle the truth. But, I'll tell you anyway.
Slahi was jailed because he was NOT a "member" of the Karzai-US coup d'tat.
Ahmad Shah Massoud was whacked on Sept 9, 2001 — two days before 9-11. He was loyal to the slain Massoud.
Coup d'tat?? Yup. Why? For the same reason that the Russians invaded. Why? THE LARGEST KNOWN COPPER RESERVES IN THE WORLD. (What are your coins made out of?)
Go back and read the Kissinger State Department Cables, Kabul Embassy, 1973. It "names names."
Confirmation: John Kerry speech to the CFR, October 26, 2009.
Slahi has never been charged with a crime by the United States?
so he isnt on the no-fly list?
i would imagine that having pissed off most of the islamic faith around the planet, the US would have reached the billion mark on the no-fly a long time ago.
One thing the US is really good at, making enemies.
Good news for him. Now, the nation that illegally detained and tortured him, how will they be penalized?
There’s that “unlawfully” word again. It appears in the article on British surveillance as well. Is it used to avoid saying “illegal” because the establishment doesn’t like that particular word? If so, Amnesty International should stop making the establishment’s job easier and call them out FOR ILLEGAL ACTIVITY.
wont need to see cia the now shredded cia tapes now that the cats are out of the bag.
i have to wonder what the hell do the pimped out political whores in washington call a win?
Illegal activities involve breaking laws and have prescribed punishments. Unlawful activity operates outside the rule of law and isn’t subject to legal sanction. The danger for governments that behave unlawfully is a loss of legitimacy. However, if you can keep the public distracted with an entertaining election, filled with salacious bits of gossip, that isn’t really a problem.