Guantánamo Diary

by Mohamedou Ould Slahi

  ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■.*

  “You know, ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■, your only problem is your time in Canada. If you really haven’t done nothing in Canada, you don’t belong in jail,” concluded ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ after several sessions.

  He was a specialist on Afghanistan; he himself had attended the training camps there as an undercover agent during the war against communism. When I was training in Al Farouq in ’91, he was working undercover as a student in Khalden.† He questioned me thoroughly about my whole trip to Afghanistan and showed satisfaction with my answers. That was very much his whole job. In the winter of 2001 he was sent, maybe undercover, to Afghanistan and Turkey to help the U.S. capture Mujahideen, and I saw him when he came back in the summer of 2002 with a whole bunch of pictures. Part of his mission was to gather Intels about me from other detainees in Afghanistan, but he didn’t seem to have come up with anything. ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ showed me the pictures. I didn’t recognize anybody, and felt bad for myself. Why did they show me more than 100 pictures, and I knew none of them? It didn’t make sense. Usually, interrogators ask about people that are connected to you. So I decided to recognize at least one picture.

  “This is Gamal Abdel Nasser,” I said.

  “You are making fun of me, aren’t you?” said ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ angrily.

  “No, no, I just thought it looks like him.” ■■■■■■■■■■ is a former Egyptian president who died before I was born.*

  “These people are from the same gang as you are,” ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ said.

  “Maybe. But I don’t know them,” I said. He didn’t say much after that; ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ just spoke about his adventure in Afghanistan. “You’re courageous,” I remarked, to give him fuel for more talk.

  “You know, the Americans are using smart weapons that follow their target based on temperature changes. Many brothers have been captured,” ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ recounted under the thick cloud of his cigarette smoke. I never saw ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ after that session.

  ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■; I know his real first name.†

  Boom! He slapped me across the face, and pushed my face against the wall. I was sobbing, maybe more because of frustration than pain.

  “You are not a man! I am going to make you lick the dirty floor and tell me your story, beginning from the point when you got out of your mother’s vagina,” he continued. “You haven’t seen nothing yet.” He was correct, although he was the biggest liar I ever met. He lied so much that he contradicted himself because he would forget what he had said the last time about a specific topic. In order to give himself credibility, he kept swearing and taking the Lord’s name in vain. I always wondered whether he thought I believed his garbage, though I always acted as if I did; he would have been angry if I called him a liar. He arrested big al Qaeda guys who talked about me being the bad guy, and he released them a thousand and one times from the prison when they told the truth. The funny thing was that he always forgot that he arrested and released them already.

  “I arrested your cousin Abu Hafs and he told me the whole truth. As a matter of fact, he said ‘Don’t you put your hands on me, and I’m gonna tell you the truth,’ and I didn’t, and he did. He told me bad things about you. After that I bid him farewell and secretly sent him to Mauritania, where he was going to be interrogated for a couple of weeks and released. But you’re different. You keep holding back Intels. I am going to send you to the secret political prison in the middle of the desert. Nobody is gonna give a shit about you.” I had to keep listening to this same garbage over and over; the only thing he changed was the dates of arrest and release. In his dreams, he also arrested ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■, and other individuals who had supposedly been providing information about me. Good for him; as long as he didn’t beat me or attack me verbally I was cool, and would just listen carefully to his Thousand-and-One-Arabian-Nights tales.

  “I’ve just arrived from the U.S., where I interrogated ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■,” he obviously lied.

  “Well, that’s good, because he must have told you that he doesn’t know me.”

  “No, he said he does.”

  “Well, that’s none of your business, right? According to you, I’ve done crimes against the U.S., so just send me to the U.S. or tell me what have I done against your country,” I remarked sharply. I was growing tired of the futile conversation with him, and of trying to convince him that I had nothing to do with the Millennium Plot.

  “I am not working for the Americans. Some of your friends are trying to hurt my country, and I’m asking you indirect questions as an interrogation technique,” ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ lied.

  “Which friends of mine are trying to hurt your country?” I wondered.

  “I cannot tell you!”

  “Since I haven’t tried to hurt your country, there’s no blaming me. I am not my friends. Go and arrest them and release me.” But if you are trying to make sense of things, the interrogation room is not for you. Whenever ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ told me he had arrested somebody, I knew that the guy was still free.

  Although he used physical violence against me only twice, he kept terrorizing me with other methods that were maybe worse than physical pain. He put a poor detainee next to my interrogation room, and his colleague started to beat him with a hard object until he burst out crying like a baby. How cheap! That was painful. I started to shake, my face got red, my saliva got as bitter as green persimmon, my tongue as heavy as metal. Those are the symptoms I always suffer when I get extremely scared, and the constant fear didn’t seem to harden me. My depression reached its peak.

  “Do you hear what’s happening next door?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you want to suffer the same?” I almost said yes. It was so hard for me to helplessly listen to somebody suffering. It’s not easy to make a grown-up cry like a baby.

  “Why? I am talking to you!” I said, showing a fake composure. After all, the brother next door was also talking to his interrogator. ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ sardonically smiled and continued to smoke his cigarette as if nothing were happening. That night I was very cooperative and quiet; the logical and argumentative human being in me disappeared all of a sudden. ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ knew what he was doing, and he had apparently been doing it for a long time.

  He would make me pass through the torture row so I would hear the cries and moans and the shouting of the torturers. I was blessed because the guards kept me blindfolded so I couldn’t see the detainees. I was not supposed to see them, nor was I interested in seeing a brother, or actually anybody, suffering. The Prophet Mohamed (Peace be upon him) said, “God tortures whoever tortures human beings,” and as far as I understand it, the person’s religion doesn’t matter.

  “I am going to send you to the Shark Pool,” ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ threatened me, when I refused to talk to him after he hit me.

  “You don’t know me. I swear by Almighty God I’ll never talk to you. Go ahead and torture me. It will take my death to make me talk, and for your information I’m sorry for every bit of cooperation I have offered in the past,” I said.

  “First of all, your cooperation was achieved by force. You didn’t have a choice. Nor will you in the future: I am going t
o make you talk,” ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ said.

  ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ started to push me against the wall and hit me on the sides of my face, but I didn’t feel any pain. I don’t think he hit me with his whole strength; the guy looks like a bull, and one real blow from him would have cost me 32 teeth. As he was hitting me, he started to ask me questions. I don’t remember the questions, but I do remember my answers. There was only one answer.

  “Ana Bari’a, I am innocent.” I drove him crazy, but there was no making me talk.

  “I have no time right now, but you’re gonna suffer heavily tomorrow, son of a‥…” he said, and immediately left the room.

  The escort took me back to my cell. It was around midnight; I sat on my prayer mat and started reading the Koran and praying until very late. I could hardly concentrate on what I was reading. I kept thinking, What will it be like in the Shark Pool? I had heard of an electrified pool, I knew they used one in Egypt, but “Shark Pool” sounded terrible.

  But the rendezvous came and went without me being taken to the torture place, one day, two day, three days! Nothing happened to me, except for no food, not because they didn’t give it to me but because I had no appetite, as always when I get depressed. I learned later from the Jordanian detainee in GTMO who spent fifty days in the same prison that there is no such thing as the Shark Pool, but that they do have other painful methods of torture, like hanging detainees from their hands and feet and beating them for hours, and depriving them from sleep for days until they lose their minds.

  “In Jordan they don’t torture unless they have evidence,” ■■■■■■■■■■ said. “If they knew what I do, they wouldn’t even bother arresting you. The Americans told them to,” ■■■■■■■■■■■■ continued.

  “The torture starts around midnight and finishes around dawn. Everybody takes part, the prison director, the interrogators, and the guards,” ■■■■■■■■■■■■ said. ■■■■■■■■■■■■■ information was consistent with what I saw. I personally heard beatings, but I don’t know whether the detainees were hung up or not when the beating happened. And I witnessed sleep deprivation more than once.

  Late one night when I was talking to some of my guard friends, I kept hearing sounds as if some people were performing harsh training with loud voices to get the whole energy out of their body, like in Kung-Fu. I heard heavy bodies hitting the floor. It was just too noisy, and too close to my ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■.

  “Are you guys training so late?” I asked one of the guards. Before he could say a word, another guy appeared dressed in a Ninja-like suit that covered him from head to toe. The guard looked at him and turned to me, smiling.

  “Do you know this guy?” he asked. I forced an official smile.

  “No.” The new guy took his mask off, and he looked like the devil himself. Out of fear, my smile turned to laughter. “Oh, yes! We know each other,” I said.

  “■■■■■■■■■■■ asks if you guys are training now?” my guard wryly asked the Ninja.

  “Yes! Do you want to train with us? We have many detainees enjoying PT,” he said sardonically. I knew right away that he meant torture. My laughter faded into a smile, and my smiled into fixed lips over my teeth. I didn’t want to reveal my disappointment, fear, and confusion.

  “No, I’m just fine,” I said. The devil resumed his business, and I asked the guard, “Why do they put on the masks for this type of job?”

  “They want to protect their identities. In Jordan, you can get killed for doing such things.” He was right: most of the detainees were arrested because they know something, not because of crimes, and so they will be released sooner or later. I wished I hadn’t known about that mischief; it was just impossible for me to sleep when I was listening to grown-ups crying like babies. I tried to put every object in my ears and around my head but nothing helped. As long as the torture lasted, I couldn’t sleep. The good thing was that the torture wasn’t every day, and the voices didn’t always reach my cell.

  In February 2002, the director of Jordan’s Antiterrorism Department was the subject of an assassination plot.* He almost gave his soul back. Somebody planted a time bomb in the chassis of the car of the biggest target of the Islamic movement in Jordan. The bomb was supposed to explode on the way between his home and his office—and it did. But what happened seemed like a miracle. On his way to work, the Director felt like buying cigarettes. His driver stopped in front of a store and left to grab a pack of cigarettes. The director felt like going with his chauffeur. As soon as both left the car, the bomb exploded. Nobody was harmed, but the vehicle was history.

  The investigation led to a suspect, but the secret police couldn’t find him. But the King of the Fight against Terrorism cannot be messed with; suspects must be arrested and the guilty party must be found. Immediately. The Jordanian secret Agency had to have revenge for the big head. The peaceful brother of the suspect was to be taken as a pawn and tortured until his brother turned himself in. Special Forces were sent out, arrested the innocent boy in a crowded place, and beat him beyond belief. They wanted to show people the destiny of a family when one of its members tries to attack the government. The boy was taken to the prison and tortured every day by his interrogator.

  “I don’t care how long it takes, I am going to keep torturing you until your brother turns himself in,” his interrogator said. The family of the boy was given the opportunity to visit the boy, not for humane reasons, but because the interrogator wanted the family to see the miserable situation of the boy so they would turn in the suspected son. The family was devastated, and soon the information leaked that the suspect was hiding in his family’s house. Late that night, an operation stormed the house and arrested him. The next day his brother was released.

  “What will you say if somebody asks you about the bruises and injuries I caused you?” the interrogator asked him.

  “I’ll say nothing!” answered the boy.

  “Look, we usually keep people until they heal, but I’m releasing you. You go ahead and file anything you like against me. I did what I got to do to capture a terrorist, and you’re free to go.” As to his brother, he was taken care of by the director himself: he kept beating him for six straight hours. And that is not to mention what the other interrogators did to satisfy their chief. I learned all this from the guards when I noticed that the prison had become remarkably crowded. Not that I could see anybody, but the food supply shrunk decidedly; they kept moving detainees to and from their cells; whenever detainees were led past my cell the guards closed my bin hole; and I saw the different shifts of guards more frequently than usual. The situation started to improve in the summer of 2002.

  By then, the Jordanians were basically done with me. When ■■■■■■■■■■■■■ finished my hearing, he handed me my statements. “Read the statements and sign them,” he said.

  “I don’t need to read them, I trust you!” I lied. Why should I read something when I didn’t have the option to sign or to refuse? No judge would take into consideration somebody’s statements that were coerced in a prison facility such as the Jordanian Military prison.

  After about a week ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ took me to interrogation in a nice room. “Your case is closed. You haven’t lied. And I thank you for your cooperation. When it comes to me, I am done with you, but it’s the decision of my boss when you’ll go home. I hope soon.”

  I was happy with the news; I had expected it, but not that soon.

  “Would you like to work for us?” he asked me.

  “I’d like to, but I really am not qualified for this type of work,” I said, partly lying and partly telling the truth. He tried in a friendly way to convince me, but I, with the most friendliness I could manage, told him that I was way too much of an idiot for Intel work.

  But when the Jordanians shared the result of their investigat
ion with the U.S. and sent them the file, the U.S. took the file and slapped the Jordanians in their faces. I felt the anger of Uncle Sam thousands of miles away, when ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ came back into his old skin during the last two months of my incarceration in Jordan. The interrogations resumed. I tried all I could to express myself. Sometimes I talked, sometimes I refused. I hunger-struck for days, but ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ made me eat under threat of torture. I wanted to compel the Jordanians to send me back home, but I failed. Maybe I wasn’t hardcore enough.

  GTMO

  FIVE

  GTMO

  February 2003–August 2003

  First “Mail” and First “Evidence”… The Night of Terror… The DOD Takes Over… 24 Hour Shift Interrogations… Abduction inside the Abduction… The Arabo-American Party

  The rules have changed. What was no crime is now considered a crime.”

  “But I’ve done no crimes, and no matter how harsh you guys’ laws are, I have done nothing.”

  “But what if I show you the evidence?”

  “You won’t. But if you do, I’ll cooperate with you.”

  ■■■■■■■■■ showed me the worst people in ■■■■■■■. There were fifteen, and I was number 1; number 2 was ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■.*

  “You gotta be kidding me,” I said.

  “No, I’m not. Don’t you understand the seriousness of your case?”