mohamedou ould slahi wife and son

(Until 2007, a terrorist sanctions list included Salahis name as an alias for Abu Hafs.). Salahi didnt know their real names, and never heard from them again. The plan, conceived by James Mitchell, a psychologist working on contract for the C.I.A., was to induce learned helplessness in humans by combining an individually tailored regimen of torture techniques with environmental manipulation. But his guard suspected otherwise. By Marisa Egerstrom. But the climactic descriptions of what it took for him to "break" are almost . He remains locked inside the notorious naval base. Mitchell argued that, by reverse-engineering this program, interrogators could overwhelm whatever resistance training a detainee might have absorbed from the Manchester manual. He signed it. Look up the prison on Robben Island. Abdellahis men confiscated his passport, once again citing a request by the Americans. Herrington later reported that the interrogators were unsure of the real names of more than half the detainees. Mohamedou Ould Slahi Born: December 21, 1970 Birthplace: Rosso, Mauritania Jodie Foster Born: November 19, 1962 Birthplace: Los Angeles, California, USA Nancy Hollander Born: March 10, 1944 Benedict Cumberbatch Born: July 19, 1976 Birthplace: Hammersmith, London, England, UK Lt. Col. Stuart Couch Born: April 20, 1965 One of the arresting agents suggested that Salahi drive his own car to the station, so that he could drive himself home afterward. The Ambassador drove him to Tehrans international airport in a diplomatic vehicle, and accompanied him through the diplomatic channel, through airport security and immigration, right up until the moment he got on the plane. I took the pillow as a sign of the end of the physical torture.. 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. Because he had no experience with weapons, Al Qaeda personnel sent him to the Al Farouq training camp, near Khost, where he learned how to use a Kalashnikov rifle and launch rocket-propelled grenades. To insure Salahis upkeep, the family regularly gave Abdellahis men money, food, clothes, and gifts. 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. The Mauritanian, Kevin Macdonald's movie based on the true story of Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a Mauritanian man . A security guard handed him a filthy black turban, to hide his face during the drive to the secret-police headquarters. 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. Several of his co-workers were missing fingers, and the manager took every opportunity to denigrate the staff. Wood started sporadically attending prayers. 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. 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. Soon after 9/11 attacks, a call from Slahi's cousin Mahfouz Ould al-Walid, a friend of Osama bin Laden's son, got him arrested in his motherland Mauritania in West Africa and transported to Guantanamo. In Nouakchott, Abdellahi waited for updates from the C.I.A. Mohamedou Ould Slahi spent 14 years in Guantanamo Bay prison. I want to ask you a favor, if it is O.K. He often turned to a verse by the Iraqi poet Ahmed Matar: I stood in my cellWondering about my situationAm I the prisoner, or is it that guard standing nearby?Between me and him stood a wallIn the wall, there was a holeThrough which I see light, and he sees darknessJust like me he has a wife, kids, a houseJust like me he came here on orders from above. After a near-fatal stabbingand decades of threatsthe novelist speaks about writing as a death-defying act. He listed his accomplices and added, thanks to Canadian Intel, the plan was discovered and sentenced to failure. After years of holding out in interrogations, he had become what the classified dossier described as a highly cooperative font of intelligenceone of the most valuable sources in detention. He described Al Qaedas financial involvement in credit-card fraud and drug smuggling, and also the groups investment in unwitting companies in Bosnia, Canada, Chechnya, Denmark, England, Germany, Mauritania, and Spain. He drew organizational charts, with the names and operational roles of key figures, and supplied intelligence on jihadi cells and safe houses all over Europe and West Africa. Man, youve had a really tough time of it, he said. In 1996, when Abu Hafs was twenty-one, he drafted bin Ladens most important fatwa: an eleven-thousand-word document excoriating the Saudi Kingdom and warning the U.S. Secretary of Defense that Al Qaedas adherents have no intention except to enter paradise by killing you. The fatwa was Al Qaedas declaration of war against the United States. Mohamedou Ould Slahi. Mauritania is an Islamic republic, with rich traditions in poetry and recitation that belie its dismal rates of literacy and economic growth. Echo Special was a trailer that had been divided in two. Still, Salahi found his Jordanian interrogators to be highly knowledgeable, and they developed a kind of mutual respect. A panel of U.S. national security, intelligence, and other officials cleared Slahi for release in . I went back to my tent and laid down to go to sleep. "And then what they -- pretty much told him, 'This is a bunch of B.S.'" Slahi's life changed . They were afraid that I would kill some people.. Before dawn, Salahi was taken to an interrogation room. In September 2003, Couch was assigned to prepare the prosecution of Mohamedou Ould Slahi after he joined the Office of Military Commissions in August 2003. Wood told Salahi that he was working for his brothers construction company, repairing bridges. Bad people always want to blend into a crowd, Salahi explained at the military hearing. Her wife was on hand to support her last month, as she scooped the coveted Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe for her efforts in The Mauritanian. One of the hardest things to do is to tell an untruthful story and maintain it, and that is exactly where I was stuck., On September 8th, Salahi asked to speak to Zuley. Oct. 17, 2016. The International Committee of the Red Crosswhich has access to many of the worlds most notorious detention sites, some of them in countries where there is no rule of lawhad recently sent representatives to Guantnamo, but the base commander, citing military necessity, had refused to allow them into Echo Special. . His whole reputation rested on this fiction. Force-feeding during the daylight hours of Ramadan, when Muslims are supposed to fast. I am not in Afghanistan, Salahi replied. Mohamedou Ould Salahi, from Mauritania, was born in 1970. (His wife returned to Nouakchott.) How can I render uninterrupted interrogation that has been lasting the last 7 years. I pictured my family already having prepared the Iftar fast-breaking food, my mom mumbling her prayers while duly working the modest delicacies, everybody looking for the sun to take its last steps and hide beneath the horizon, Salahi wrote. When the ice melted, they punched him, then repacked the ice to freeze him again. In 2005, Mauritania had a military coupthe typical way in which power has changed hands since independence. . 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. As for his jihadi connections, Robertson continued, the governments classified filings tend to support Salahis submission that he was attempting to find the appropriate balanceavoiding close relationships with al-Qaida members, but also trying to avoid making himself an enemy of the group. In Kandahar, Abu Hafs felt the Americans closing in. Mohamedou Ould Slahi was born on 21 December, 1970, is a Writer. TV crews were present at meals, and an interviewer showed up at Salahis apartment, recorder in hand, and asked Wood, who still hadnt told his brothers that he is a Muslim, to comment on his favorite Quranic passages, and to share his thoughts on the legacy of the Prophet Muhammad. Out here, Im probably only drinking seven or eight coffees per day, he told me. contract psychologist who devised the enhanced-interrogation program, describes this period as an element of Pavlovian conditioning, in which the detainee sees his situation improve or deteriorate in direct accordance with his level of compliance. In Guantnamo Diary, Mohamedou Ould Slahi describes the months of brutal interrogation, sleep deprivation, beatings, starvation, and sexual assault he endured at the U.S. government's notorious detention center in Cuba. There are so many Ahmeds that itll be difficult for them to put him on the no-fly list, Salahi joked. In July, 2001, according to Scott-Clark and Levy, the authors of The Exile, Abu Hafs handed bin Laden his resignation letter. I want to see photos of their heads on pikes, Black said, according to Schroens memoir, First In, published in 2005. This is the exact opposite of whats supposed to happen. I dont like power, he said. In Arabic countries there are oodles, but in Europe and Canada one is very rare.. One day, he complained to Wood that the interrogators were demanding information on events that he couldnt possibly know about, because they had taken place while he was in custody. His specialty was in brutalizing detainees who were considered important, but not valuable enough to get them tickets to the secret CIA prisons, Salahi wrote. Bin Ladens family was en route to Pakistan, and Abu Hafs needed to make arrangements for their protection. After the failed attack, Canada began to aggressively investigate the Montreal cell. NOUAKCHOTT - Mohamedou Salahi is beaming.His welcoming smile is a sign that our conversation, delving into his recent past, may not be so excruciating after all. Salahi, who hadnt been home since 1993, was filled with nostalgia and dread. After work, Salahi went to his mothers house. His very existence will become erased. But with these people you cannot be likable. special agent, was eager to receive the flight manifest. By the end of the boat ride, Salahi was bleeding from his ankles, mouth, and wrists. I dont have a problem with black peoplehalf my country is black people! But the agent kept using racial slurs. We met like any decent person these dayson social media, Salahi said. Wood stayed with Salahi for four days. The Senegalese did the talking, but the Americans provided the questions and reported back to D.C. Neither of them knew that the United States had asked Mauritanias President to hand over Salahi to a rendition team. A former leader of several provinces explained to me that Abu Hafs, bin Ladens former Sharia adviser, is now an adviser to the President. She told me that she thought he was doing something really dangerousthat people might think Steve was sympathetic to someone who was involved in 9/11, and go after him, her, and their baby daughter. Shortly before the first detainees arrived, Robert McFadden, an N.C.I.S. For the next seventy days I wouldnt know the sweetness of sleeping. The first rumors of a planes operation began circulating among Al Qaeda leaders in 1999. Pendant des mois, il a crit ses mmoires . The guards would rush in to save him and the chaos would start again. (He escaped through a kitchen door.) The Americans, with their policies, bore the fruit of the events of September 11th, Abu Hafs said on camera. Where are you from? one of them said. 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. In 1967, Martin Seligman, a twenty-four-year-old Ph.D. student in psychology, conducted an experiment that involved delivering electric shocks to dogs in various states of restraint. On March 22, 2010, a U.S. district-court judge named James Robertson ruled on Salahis petition to be released. As he was led away for questioning, he said: "Don't worry mom, I'll be back soon." He has been charged with no crime, but Slahi never returned. Salahi was horrified. Im now in Canada, attending a mosque where we believe a very dangerous group is attending. And, because it was Ramadan, Salahi was leading prayers. The release comes 14 years after he was first brought by the United States to the prison at Guantanamo Bay. For Wood, the trip became something more complicated than a visit to a friend. I was, like, What else have they lied about? he said. He was never charged with a crime, although the U.S. government suspected him of involvement in the September 11th attacks. Striking horror, panic, and fear in the hearts of the enemies of Allah is a divine commandment. He added that American citizens should blame their law-enforcement and intelligence agencieswith their satellites, ground stations, millions of spies, and huge budgetsfor the fact that the hijackers had found a security breach as big as a whole fleet of hijacked civilian aircraft, and managed to shove Americas nose into the ground.. In all this time, his family had had no official confirmation of his whereabouts. According to interrogation memos, they decorated the walls with photos of genitalia, and set up a baby crib, because he was sensitive about the fact that he had no children. He started in on the books he had been too afraid to request in Guantnamoones about Islam. On his third visit, he told two Saudi students that he wanted to become a Muslim. Nevertheless, he spent 14 years of captivity in America's notorious Guantanamo Bay prison,. But, after the diary came out, they learned that Mohamedou is not high value, hes just a guy who got fucked over for years. He added, Guantnamo has a long shadow for everyonenot just the detainees.. Twelve days later, a group of men charged into Salahis cell with a snarling German shepherd. In June, 2004, the Supreme Court ruled that Guantnamo detainees could challenge the grounds for their detention. A couple of years later, he considered visiting Mauritania, to track down Salahis family and apologize for his role in Salahis detention. The next morning, he found two pinhole cameras. What I was told was that his information had saved thousands of American lives, Wood said, and this is what theyd given him to keep talking., Salahi was taken into custody when he was thirty years old, but he had already lived on four continents, and spoke fluent Arabic, French, and German. Mohamedou Ould Slahi, 50, has never been convicted of any crime or even charged with any offence. Mohamedou Salahi spent more than fourteen years in detention at Guantnamo Bay, where he was repeatedly tortured. . The goal was to assess whether inescapable pain could condition an animal into learned helplessness, whereby it simply accepts its fate. A private jet landed, and out climbed a Jordanian rendition team. . . Stand the fuck up! an interrogator said. A year in Echo Special shattered Woods ideas about his post-military future. He didnt harbor any particular animosity toward Muslims, but he had absorbed his mothers belief: If its not from Jesus then it must be from the Devil. After completing the requirements to become an M.P., Wood enrolled in a criminal-justice program at a nearby community college. He was guilty of nothing, Abdellahi told me, and he had not been charged with a crime. A lot of these prisoners were actually looking forward to being handed over to the Americans, figuring it would be pretty obvious they werent Al Qaeda. Yet hundreds of them were sent to Guantnamo Bay, which ended up housing seven hundred and eighty people. We knew he wasnt a threat. Where once he had struggled to forgive himself for enjoying Salahis company, he now felt bad about having to lock the door at the end of each shift. Wood is six feet three, with a shaved head, a shy, stoic manner, and the musculature of an lite bodybuilder. 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 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. Few locals spoke French, but since the country had been arbitrarily drawn up as a vast, mostly desert territory, populated by numerous ethnic groups who spoke different languages, there was no alternative for official documentation. He wanted no part of a system in which he might have control over another persons liberty. There was a famous Mauritanian poet named Taki, the former minister of communications, the current Mauritanian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. The first man off the bus had only one leg. Salahi was asked about innocuous exchanges from intercepted e-mails and phone calls, as if they had been conducted in code. English accepts more curses than any other language, and I soon learned to curse with the commoners., As a matter of professionalism, Wood resolved from the outset to bury in the back of his mind what he had heard of Salahis past. Another year passed. During the next few months, Wood showed up between prayer times, to avoid any pressure to participate. Mohamedou was . It was the first time Wood had encountered the Quran. Mohamed Elmoustapha Ould Badre Eddine, a left-wing member of the Mauritanian Parliament, conducted inquiries of his own, but made no progress. Twenty-hour interrogations. A few weeks later, Iranian spies told Abu Hafs to call other Al Qaeda officials and inform them that they would be welcome in Iranalthough, like him, they would live with their wives and children under a form of house arrest, sometimes in prisons, sometimes in lavish compounds and hotels, always in the company of the Revolutionary Guard. Salahi and Wood sat in front of a laptop, with the Webcam on, and Skyped into a room in Washington. When Wood told the old man that he had worked at Guantnamo Bay, the man suggested that he keep it to himself. Salahis brother, who is a German citizen, had read in Der Spiegel that he was in Guantnamo, but Abdellahi insisted that it wasnt truethat he was looking after Salahi in a Mauritanian prison. I think he still sees any baby in my family as a future inmate. Brahim Ebety, Salahis Mauritanian lawyer, told me that he is considering a lawsuit against the Mauritanian government. He identified himself as Captain Collins, a Navy officer who had been sent to Guantnamo by the White House. Wood had come to see Islam in much the same way that many of the detainees did: as the only thing that couldnt be stripped from them. Each government claims that it has come to the rescue of the population, which had been neglected and abused by the previous government, Badre Eddine told me. . Salahi agreed, and Abu Hafs wired around four thousand dollars to his German account. Thirty-five years later, the United States government drew inspiration from this experiment in its approach to interrogating terror suspects. Salahis detainee dossier lists his reasons for transfer to Guantnamo: to provide information on the Al Qaeda training camp he had attended in 1992; a separate Afghan militia, which had received substantial backing from the C.I.A. Having accepted his guards, Salahi wrote, the next phase of captivity was getting used to the prison, and being afraid of the outside world.. He was left for hours in the Caribbean sun. Sometimes the sessions veer into his own coping mechanismsthe routines he made up to fill his days in Guantnamo, for example, when we had nothing to look forward to except the world we created inside my cell., Earlier this month, Amanda gave birth to a son. 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. 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. Wood was the second of three boys. 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. It was Ramadan again. The 58-year-old actress, who won the Best Supporting Actress prize for her role in The Mauritanian, appeared on screen for the virtual ceremony with her wife Alexandra Hedison and their dog,. He was held in Guantanamo Bay from. Summer/Autumn 2015. But I wasnt the decider. In his fourth year of U.S. detention, Mohamedou Ould Slahi bonded with one particular Guantnamo guard over prison meals, American TV and the quirky movie, "The Big Lebowski." But, after Salahi returned to Germany, they had scarcely been in touch. For the rest of the interrogation session, he was forced to look at photos of corpses from the aftermath of the attacks. . were entering a period of self-reflection; during the next several years, internal and congressional investigations would expose many of the worst abuses that had been inflicted on Salahi and other men in custody. Illustration by Tyler Comrie; source photograph from Stringer/ AFP/ Getty (face). Wood, then a member of the. He added that such an attack would be a betrayal of Al Qaedas agreement with the Taliban government, which had provided sanctuary for the group on the understanding that it would do nothing to provoke a full-scale U.S. invasion. When my turn came, two guards grabbed me by the hands and feet and threw me toward the reception team, Salahi wrote. They named him Ahmed, and Salahi asked Wood to be the godfather. His diary is not merely a vivid record of a miscarriage of justice, but a deeply personal memoir terrifying, darkly humorous, and surprisingly gracious. -From Guantnamo Diary, by Mohamedou Ould Slahi It was a simple prayer. He wasnt sure what he wanted out of the visithe knew only that curiosity eclipsed his misgivings. When Wood agreed to talk about Salahi for a TV documentary, Wendys parents staged an intervention. Every day, Mariem Mint Elwadia asked God for the same thing: She wanted to see her son, Mohamedou Ould Slahi, just one . ), The government no longer attempted to prosecute Salahinobody had touched the criminal case since Couch withdrewbut it argued that he should nevertheless be detained indefinitely. Der hat eine recht interessante Vita, war bei Al-Qaida ttig und soll whrend seiner . The Corrupt World Behind the Murdaugh Murders. Forces recruits who speak grammatically incorrectly, he wrote on a scrap of paper inside his cell. You could always tell when someone got IRFed, as the detainees throughout the camp would start chanting and screaming, Neely recalled. En 2005, trois ans aprs son arrestation, Mohamedou a commenc rdiger un journal. Salahi saw a mentally ill old man subjected to this method. . I was scared to hell, Salahi recalled at his hearing. And Steves interest is to impress the girls. Soon afterward, Salahis brothers were released with instructions to return to Mauritania. Another two years passed before Salahis name caught the attention of Deddahi Ould Abdellahi, the head of Mauritanias security-intelligence apparatus. In Islam, the Quran is considered the transcribed word of God; some Muslims keep the book wrapped in cloth, never letting it touch unclean surfaces. I'm a really big believer in Joe Biden. He just said, Dude, they fucked me up.. (After 9/11, the directorate acted as a proxy jailer for the C.I.A.) Mohamedou Ould Salahi was born in Rosso, Mauritania, the ninth of twelve children of a camel herder. That May, U.S. Navy Seals killed bin Laden, and collected more than a million documents from his compound in northern Pakistan; among them was a letter from Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, seeking the central leaderships blessing to enter into a secret agreement with the Mauritanian government. I petitioned the Defense Department to allow me to show him the edited manuscript, but they turned me down. In 2015, it was published, by Little, Brown, as Guantnamo Diary.. agents visited Salahis cell. Mohamedou Ould Slahi, author of "Guantanamo Diary," was released after a review board determined that his continued detention was not necessary to protect against a threat to U.S. security . 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 anteroom was filled with Mauritanian dignitaries and lites, all men, sitting on couches that lined the perimeter. No chairs, no lying down, no more access to his prescription pain medication. In November of that year, Salahi moved to Montreal, where he began leading prayers at a prominent mosque. Not long afterward, in mid-November, Salahis boss sent him to Mauritanias Presidential palace, to install Internet routers and update the phones. 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. I was living literally in terror. Allah! . Slahi told me he is hearing voices now, the interrogator wrote. He spent 14 years imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay after being falsely accused of playing a role in . 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. Like most countries in West Africa, Mauritania had gained independence from France a decade earlier. In September, 2002, Army officers started referring to Guantnamo as Americas Battle Lab., Early in the afternoon of October 2, 2002, a group of interagency lawyers and psychologists met to come up with a framework that used psychological stressors and environmental manipulation to foster dependence and compliance. The C.I.A. But the call to jihad interrupted his studies. As they walked to the car, Salahi dug into Woods personal life. I thought hed be back in no time, he told me. Wood walked through the camp to Echo Special proud to be part of a serious national-security operation. I was forbidden from seeing the light of the day; every once in a while they gave me a rec-time at night to keep me from seeing or interacting with any detainees. A week after Salahi began leading prayers at the Al Sunnah mosque, Ressam drove a rental car onto a U.S.-bound ferry in Victoria, British Columbia. 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. Over a three-way Anglo-French-African video call, Mohamedou Ould Slahi and Tahar Rahim are exchanging hearty greetings. One night in October, 1999, a friend of Salahis asked him to host three Muslims who were passing through Duisburg. But by then the Soviet Union had collapsed, and, while Salahi was in training, the Afghan government lost its Russian support. They were very jumpy, Salahi recalled at his hearing. All I can tell you is to tell the truth. They hugged. The cousins had married a pair of sisters, and so they were now also brothers-in-law. After Salahi was processed, he spent thirty days in a cold isolation cell, a practice that the U.S. government considered a main building block of the exploitation process, as it allows the captor total control over personal inputs. When the isolation period was over, Salahi learned from other detainees that there was a difference in opinion between those who had lived in European democracies and those who had lived only in Muslim countries, with the latter group arguing that Americas war on terror was an anti-Muslim crusade. Salahi tried to convince the skeptics that their arrival in Cuba was a blessing, and that they would be treated fairly and exonerated by the American justice system. Mauritanian hospitals dont have the capacitythey typically send such patients to Francebut what Salahi didnt know was that his repatriation would not amount to the restitution of his rights.
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