The Mauritanian

by Mohamedou Ould Slahi

  The FBI interrogators told me that I wasn’t truthful.

  “No, I was,” I lied. The good thing was that I didn’t give a damn about what they thought. Special Agent Michael kept writing my answers and looking at me at the same time. I wondered, how could he do both? But later I learned that FBI interrogators study your body language while you’re speaking, which is nothing but bullshit.5 There are many factors involved in an interrogation, and they differ from one culture to another. Since the United States knows my entire case now, I suggest that Agent Michael should go back and check where he marked me as lying, just to check his competence. The U.S. interrogators also went outside their assignment and did what any interrogator would have done: they fished, asking me about Sudan, Nairobi, and Dar Es Salaam. How am I supposed to know about those countries, unless I have multiple doppelgängers?

  Special Agent Jack offered to have me work with them. I think the offer was futile unless they were dead sure that I was a criminal. I’m not a cop, but I understand how criminals can repent—but I personally had done nothing to repent for. The next day, about the same time, the FBI team showed up once more, trying to get at least the same amount of information I had shared with the Mauritanians, but there was no persuading me. After all the Mauritanian authorities duly shared every-thing with them. The FBI team didn’t push me in any uncivilized way; they acted rather friendly. The chief of the team said, “We’re done. We’re going back home,” exactly like Umm ‘Amr and her donkey.6 The FBI team left Nouakchott, and I was released on February 19, 2000.

  “Those guys have no evidence whatsoever,” the DSE said sadly. He felt completely misused. The Mauritanians didn’t want me delivered to them in the first place, because it was a no-win situation: if they found me guilty and they delivered me to the U.S., they were going to feel the wrath of the public; if not, they would feel the wrath of the U.S. government. In either case, the President was going to lose his office.

  So in the end, something like this must have happened under the table:

  “We found nothing on him, and you guys didn’t provide us any evidence,” the Senegalese must have said. “Under these circumstances, we can’t hold him. But if you want him, take him.”

  “No, we can’t take him, because we’ve got to get evidence on him first,” answered the U.S. government.

  “Well, we don’t want to have anything to do with him,” said the Senegalese.

  “Turn him over to the Mauritanians,” the U.S. government suggested.

  “No, we don’t want him, just take him!” cried the Mauritanian government.

  “You got to,” said the U.S. government, giving the Mauritanians no choice. But the Mauritanian government always prefers keeping peace between the people and the government. They don’t want any trouble.

  “You are free to go,” said the DSE.

  “Should I give him everything?”

  “Yes, everything,” the DSE answered. He even asked me to double-check on my belongings, but I was so excited I didn’t check on anything. I felt as if the ghoul of fear had flown from my chest.

  “Thank you very much,” I said. The DSE ordered his assistant and recorder to drive me home. It was about 2 p.m. when we took off toward my home.

  “You’d better not talk with journalists,” said the inspector.

  “No, I won’t.” And indeed, I never disclosed the scandal of foreign interrogators violating the sovereignty of my country to journalists. I felt so bad about lying to them.

  “Come on, we have seen the FBI guys at the Hotel Halima,” a reporter told me after my release. God, those journalists are wizards.

  “Maybe they were listening to my interrogation,” I said unconvincingly.

  I tried to recognize the way to my home, but believe me, I didn’t recognize anything until the police car parked in front of our house and dropped me there. It had been almost seven years since I saw my family last.7 Everything had changed. Children had become men and women, young people had become older. My strong mom had become weak. Nonetheless everybody was happy. My sister Nejah and my former wife had hardly slept nights, praying to God to relieve my pains and sufferings. May God reward everybody who stood on my side.

  Everybody was around, my aunt, the in-laws, friends. My family kept generously feeding the visitors, some of whom came just to congratulate me, some to interview me, some just to get to know the man who had made news for the last month. After the first few days, my family and I were making plans for my future. To make a long story short, my family wanted me to stay in the country, if only to see me every day and enjoy my company. I said to myself, Screw it, went out, found a job, and was enjoying looking into the pretty face of my mom every morning. But no joy is forever

  1 The Directeur de la Sûreté de l’État, abbreviated as DSE, is the director of the Mauritanian intelligence service.

  2 MOS’s cousin and former brother-in-law, Mahfouz Ould al-Walid, also known as Abu Hafs al-Mauritani, was wanted in connection with al-Qaeda attacks in the 1990s, with a $5 million reward under the FBI’s Rewards for Justice Program. The reward for senior al-Qaeda figures increased to $25 million after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. See, e.g., U.S. State Department, “Patterns of Global Terrorism,” appendix D, May 21, 2002, http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/20121.pdf.

  3 Mauritanian President Maaouya Ould Sid’Ahmed Taya came to power in a military coup in 1984 and became president in 1992. During his long tenure as head of state, Ould Taya carried out several waves of arrests of political opponents and Islamists like the one described here, in which more than ninety people, including a former government minister and ten religious leaders, were arrested and then amnestied after publicly confessing to membership in illegal organizations. A crackdown on Islamists in the army and education system led to a failed coup attempt in 2003, and Ould Taya was ultimately deposed in a successful coup in 2005. By that time, in part because of his close cooperation with U.S. antiterrorism policies, which included allowing the rendition of MOS, and his aggressive campaign against Islamists in Mauritania, Ould Taya had lost much of his public support. See http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/08/international/africa/08mauritania.html?fta=y&_r=0; http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0809/p07s02-woaf.html; and http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/23ab7cfc-0e0f-11da-aa67-00000e2511c8.html#axzz2vwtOwdNb.

  4 MOS told the Administrative Review Board panel in 2005 that an American team consisting of two FBI agents and a third man from the Justice Department interrogated him over a two-day period near the end of his detention in Mauritania. His detention for questioning at the behest of the United States in early 2000 was widely reported in the local and international press; in a BBC report, Mauritanian officials confirmed that he was questioned in mid-February 2000 by the FBI. The New York Times reported that MOS was released from Mauritanian custody on February 19, 2000. ARB transcript, 17; http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/649672.stm; http://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/21/world/terrorist-suspect-is-released-by-mauritania.html.

  5 The FBI lists body language among possible deception clues in material posted on its website, and former FBI agents have written and spoken publicly on the subject. See, e.g., https://leb.fbi.gov/2011/june/evaluating-truthfulness-and-detecting-deception; and http://cjonline.com/news/local/2010-11-26/no_lie_ex_fbi_agent_spots_fibbers.

  6 The reference is to a pre-Islamic proverb about a cursed woman who is expelled from her tribe; the sense is of an unwanted person who goes away and is not seen again.

  7 MOS left Mauritania in 1988 to study in Germany. He testified at his 2004 Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) hearing that he visited his family in Mauritania for two or three weeks in 1993. The CSRT transcript is available at http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/couch-slahihearing-03312007.pdf. CSRT transcript, 5.

  THREE

  Mauritania

  September 29, 2001–November 28, 2001

  A Wedding and a Party . . . I Turn Myself In . . . Release from Custody . . . The Camel Rests in Two St
eps . . . The Secret Police Show Up at My House . . . “Independence Day” . . . A Flight to Jordan

  September 29, 2001, was a very busy day: for one, I was involved in organizing the wedding of my lovely niece Zeinebou Mint Elmamy, and for two, I was invited to attend a big dinner organized by a very important man in my tribe named Ahmed Ould El Moctar Ould Khattary. This man had unluckily been involved in a terrible car accident, and had recently come back after spending some time in the U.S. for medical treatment. Ould Khattary enjoys a high respect among the people from the South, and the dinner was to aid what we call The Cadres of Trarza.1

  In the morning I asked my boss to give me some money to help my sister with the wedding.2 In Mauritania we have the bad habit of organizing everything on the whim, a heritage of rural life that all Mauritanians still deal with today. My job was to help transport the invited guests to the site where the wedding was taking place.

  Weddings in the Islamic, Arabic world are not only different from one country to another, but within the same country there are all kinds of different customs. My niece’s wedding followed the customs that are practiced by average prestigious families in southern Mauritania.

  Most of the work is usually done by the guy. He investigates the would-be wife’s background by unleashing the female relatives he trusts the most. The report of this “committee” will produce an assessment of the technical data of the girl, her attitude, her intellect, and the like; sometimes this investigation step can be skipped when the girl already has a good reputation.

  The next step is dating, though that is different than the American model. The interested guy dates his would-be wife in her family’s house, usually in the presence of other family members. The goal of these dates is for both to get to know each other. The dating can take between a couple of months and a couple of years, depending on the man and the girl. Some girls don’t want to start a family before graduating from school, and some do—or let’s say family pressure and the man compel her to start the family right away. On the other hand, most guys aren’t ready for marriage; they just want to “reserve” the girl and go about their business until they are financially ready. The groom is usually older than the bride, sometimes even much older, but in a few cases the bride happens to be older, and sometimes much older. Mauritanians are relatively tolerant when it comes to age differences.

  Before the guy officially asks for the hand of the girl, he secretly sends a good friend to the girl to ask her whether she might consider him. When that is established, the decisive step comes next: the guy asks the girl’s mom whether she would accept him as the husband of her daughter. Guys only ask for the hand of a girl if they know they will more than likely be accepted, so sometimes the guy sends a trusted third person in order to avoid the embarrassment of being turned down. Only the mother of the girl can decide; most fathers have little say.

  This step, though not official, is binding for both. Everybody now knows that the couple is engaged. Premarital sex is not tolerated in Mauritania, and not only for religious reasons: many guys mistrust any girl who accepts having sex with them. They assume, if she accepts having sex with me, she would accept another man, and another man, in an endless sexual adventure. Although the Islamic religion treats males and females the same way in this regard, the society tends to accept premarital sex from men much more than women. You can compare it with cheating in the U.S.: the society tolerates it more if a man cheats than if a woman does. I never met an American man who would forgive cheating, but I did meet many American women who would.

  There is no party or engagement ring, but the fiancé is now entitled to give his wife-to-be presents. Before the engagement, a lady would not accept presents from a stranger.

  The last step is the actual wedding, the date of which is set by agreement of both; each party can take as much as time as he or she needs, as long as it is reasonable. The man is expected to produce a dowry as a necessary formality, but it is not appropriate for the girl’s family to ask for any sum; the whole thing must be left to the man and his financial possibilities. So dowries vary from a very modest to a relatively sinfully high amount. Once the man produces whatever his possibilities and judgment allow, many families will only take a small, symbolic amount and send the rest to the man’s family, at least half of the dowry.

  The wedding party traditionally takes place in the girl’s family house, but lately some people have found a lucrative business in professionally organizing weddings in club-like houses. The party begins with the Akd, the marriage agreement, which can be performed by any Imam or respected Sheikh. Mauritanians don’t believe in governmental formalities, and so hardly anybody declares his marriage at a government institution unless it is for financial advantages, which rarely exist.

  The wedding party equally drains both the groom’s and bride’s family. Traditionally, Mauritanians would party for seven full days, but the punishments of modern life cut those seven days back to one single night. Only the friends of the groom from his generation are allowed to attend the wedding, unlike women, who can be all different ages. At the party women don’t mingle directly with men, though they can be in the same hall; each sex respects the spot of the other. However, all the attendants talk to each other and enjoy the same entertainment that takes place in the middle of the hall, such as sketches, music, and poetry. When I was a child, women and men used to pass coded messages back and forth targeting a particular individual who certainly understood the message; the messages usually unfolded a funny situation that could happen to anybody and that is somewhat embarrassing. The person’s friends would laugh at him or her, and he or she would have to fight back targeting the anonymous person who sent the message. People don’t do this teasing entertainment anymore.

  During the wedding food and drinks are generously served. The party traditionally closes with what they call the Taweez-Pillage, which doesn’t have anything to do with the literal meaning of the words. It just describes the plot by the women to kidnap the bride, and the brothers’ efforts to prevent the act. The bride’s female friends are allowed to conspire and kidnap the bride and hide her; it is the job of the groom and his friends to prevent this event, and should the men fail in preventing the abduction, it is their duty to find the bride and deliver her to her husband. The bride must cooperate with her female friends, and she usually does, otherwise she’ll be branded with all kinds of bad adjectives. It sometimes takes many days for the males to find the bride.

  When the man succeeds in getting the bride the party is over, and the bride is given to the groom. Both get escorted by their closest friends in a long rally leading to the house of the new family, while the rest of the attendants retreat to their own homes.

  The wedding of my beloved niece Zeinebou Mint Elmamy would have gone more or less like this. I wasn’t supposed to attend the party because I was way older than the groom, and in any case I didn’t have time. I had another interesting party waiting on me. When I finished delivering the guests I checked with my mom on the situation. Everything seemed to be alright; my services no longer were required as far as I could see. The atmosphere of wedding was clearly going to take over.

  When I got to the party, which was in the beautiful villa of Ahmed Ould El Moctar Ould Khattary in Tevrlegh Zeina, the warmth of companionship hit me gracefully. I didn’t know the majority of the guests, but I spotted my beloved cousin and dear friend Dr. Ibrahim Ould N’taghri drowned in the middle of the crowd. I right away fought through the crowd and sat beside him.

  He was happy to see me, and introduced me to the most remarkable guests. We retreated to the margin of the party with a few of his friends, and Ibrahim introduced me to a friend of his, a young lawyer. The lawyer asked Ibrahim and me whether he could defend our cousin Mahfouz, who now was wanted by the U.S. authorities with a $25 million reward.3

  “What are you going to do for him? Reduce his sentence from 500 to 400 years?” I asked wryly. People in the other parts of the free world like Europe have
problems understanding the draconian punishments in the U.S. Mauritania is not a country of law, so we don’t have a problem understanding whatever the government does; even so, the Mauritanian legal code, when it is followed, is much more humane than the American. Why sentence somebody to 300 years when he is not going to live that long?

  We were just talking like that, and enjoying the food that was generously served, when my cell phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket and stepped aside. The display read the phone number of the DSE, the Directeur de la Sûreté de l’État.

  “Hi,” I answered.

  “Mohamedou, where are you?” he said.

  “Don’t worry! Where are you?”

  “I’m outside of my front door! I’d like to see you.”

  “Fine. Just hold on, I’m on my way!” I said. I took my cousin Ibrahim aside.

  “Look, Deddahi called me, and I’m going to see him.”

  “As soon as he releases you, give me a buzz.”

  “Alright,” I said.