Guantánamo Diary

by Mohamedou Ould Slahi

  ■■■■■■■■■■■■ came around 11 a.m., escorted by ■■■■■■■ and the new ■■■■■■■■■■■■. He was brief and direct. “My name is ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■. I work for ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■. My government is desperate to get information out of you. Do you understand?”*

  “Yes.”

  “Can you read English?”

  “Yes.”

  ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ handed me a letter that he had obviously forged. The letter was from DoD, and it said, basically, “Ould Slahi is involved in the Millennium attack and recruited three of the September 11 hijackers. Since Slahi has refused to cooperate, the U.S. government is going to arrest his mother and put her in a special facility.”

  I read the letter. “Is that not harsh and unfair?” I said.

  “I am not here to maintain justice. I’m here to stop people from crashing planes into buildings in my country.”

  “Then go and stop them. I’ve done nothing to your country,” I said.

  “You have two options: either being a defendant or a witness.”

  “I want neither.”

  “You have no choice, or your life is going to change decidedly,” he said.

  “Just do it, the sooner, the better!” I said. ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ put the forged letter back in his bag, closed it angrily, and left the room. ■■■■■■■■■■■■ would lead the team working on my case until August or September 2004. He always tried to make me believe that his real name was ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■, but what he didn’t know was that I knew his name even before I met him: ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■.*

  After that meeting ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■, he was just seeking the required formalities to kidnap me from the camp to an unknown place. “Your being here required many signatures. We’ve been trying for some time to get you here,” one of my guards would tell me later. ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ was also putting together a complete team which would execute the Abduction. All of this was carried out in secrecy; participants knew only as much as they needed to. I know for instance that ■■■■■■■ didn’t know about the details of the plan.

  On Monday August 25, 2003, around 4 p.m. ■■■■■■■ reserved me for interrogation ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■.* By then I had spent the weekend on ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■, which was entirely emptied of any other detainees, in order to keep me isolated from the rest of the community. But I saw it as a positive thing: the cell was warmer and I could see daylight, while in ■■■■■■■■■■■ I was locked in a frozen box.

  “Now I have overall control. I can do anything I want with you; I can even move you to Camp ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■.

  “I know why you moved me to ■■■■■■■■ Block,” I said. “It’s because you don’t want me to see anybody.” ■■■■■■■ didn’t comment; ■■■■ just smiled. It was more of a friendly talk. Around 5:30 p.m., ■■■■■■■ brought me my cold MRE. I had gotten used to my cold portions; I didn’t savor them, but I had been suffering weight loss like never before, and I knew in order to survive I had to eat.

  I started to eat my meal. ■■■■■■■ was going in and out, but there was nothing suspicious about that, ■■■■ had always been that way. I barely finished my meal, when all of a sudden ■■■■■■■ and I heard a commotion, guards cursing loudly (“I told you motherfucker…!”), people banging the floor violently with heavy boots, dogs barking, doors closing loudly. I froze in my seat. ■■■■■■■ went speechless. We were staring at each other, not knowing what was going on. My heart was pounding because I knew a detainee was going to be hurt. Yes, and that detainee was me.

  Suddenly a commando team consisting of three soldiers and a German shepherd broke into our interrogation room. Everything happened quicker than you could think about it. ■■■■■■■ punched me violently, which made me fall face down on the floor.

  “Motherfucker, I told you, you’re gone!” said ■■■■■.* His partner kept punching me everywhere, mainly on my face and my ribs. He, too, was masked from head to toe; he punched me the whole time without saying a word, because he didn’t want to be recognized. The third man was not masked; he stayed at the door holding the dog’s collar, ready to release it on me.

  “Who told you to do that? You’re hurting the detainee!” screamed ■■■■■■■, who was no less terrified than I was. ■■■■■ was the leader of the assailing guards, and he was executing ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ orders. As to me, I couldn’t digest the situation. My first thought was, They mistook me for somebody else. My second thought was to try to recognize my environment by looking around while one of the guards was squeezing my face against the floor. I saw the dog fighting to get loose. I saw ■■■■■■■ standing up, looking helplessly at the guards working on me.

  “Blindfold the Motherfucker, if he tries to look—”

  One of them hit me hard across the face, and quickly put the goggles on my eyes, ear muffs on my ears, and a small bag over my head. I couldn’t tell who did what. They tightened the chains around my ankles and my wrists; afterwards, I started to bleed. All I could hear was ■■■■■ cursing, “F-this and F-that!” I didn’t say a word, I was overwhelmingly surprised, I thought they were going to execute me.

  Thanks to the beating I wasn’t able to stand, so ■■■■■ and the other guard dragged me out with my toes tracing the way and threw me in a truck, which immediately took off. The beating party would go on for the next three or four hours before they turned me over to another team that was going to use different torture techniques.

  “Stop praying, Motherfucker, you’re killing people,” ■■■■■ said, and punched me hard on my mouth. My mouth and nose started to bleed, and my lips grew so big that I technically could not speak anymore. The colleague of ■■■■■ turned out to be one of my guards, ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■. ■■■■■ and ■■■■■■■■■■ each took a side and started to punch me and smash me against the metal of the truck. One of the guys hit me so hard that my breath stopped and I was choking; I felt like I was breathing through my ribs. I almost suffocated without their knowledge. I was having a hard time breathing due to the head cover anyway, plus they hit me so many times on my ribs that I stopped breathing for a moment.

  Did I pass out? Maybe not; all I know is that I kept noticing ■■■■■ several times spraying Ammonia in my nose. The funny thing was that Mr. ■■ was at the same time my “lifesaver,” as were all the guards I would be dealing with for the next year, or most of them. All of them were allowed to give me medication and first aid.

  After ten to fifteen minutes, the truck stopped at the beach, and my escorting team dragged me out of the truck and put me in a high-speed boat. ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ never gave me a break; they kept hitting me and ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ in order to make them stab me.* “You’re killing people,” said ■■■■■. I believe he was thinking out loud: he knew his was the most cowardly crime in the world, torturing a helpless detainee who completely went to submission and turned himself in. What a brave operation! ■■■■■ was trying to convince himself that he was doing the right thing.

  Inside the boat, ■■■■■ made me drink salt water, I believe it was directly from the ocean. It was so nasty I threw up. They would put any object in my mouth and shout, “Swallow, Motherfucker!,” but I decided inside not to swallow the organ-damaging salt water, which choked me when they kept pouring it in my mouth. “Swallow, you idiot!” I contemplated quickly, and decided for the nasty, damaging w
ater rather than death.

  ■■■■■ and ■■■■■■■■■■■■ escorted me for about three hours in the high-speed boat. The goal of such a trip was, first, to torture the detainee and claim that “the detainee hurt himself during transport,” and second, to make the detainee believe he was being transferred to some far, faraway secret prison. We detainees knew all of that; we had detainees reporting they had been flown around for four hours and found themselves in the same jail where they started. I knew from the beginning that I was going to be transferred to ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ about a five-minute ride. ■■■■■■■■■ had a very bad reputation: just hearing the name gave me nausea.† I knew the whole long trip I was going to take was meant to terrorize me. But what difference does it make? I cared less about the place, and more about the people who were detaining me. No matter where I got transferred, I would still be a detainee of the U.S. Armed Forces; and as for rendition to a third country, I thought I was through with that because I was already sent to Jordan for eight months. The politics of the DoD toward me was to take care of me on their own; “September 11 didn’t happen in Jordan; we don’t expect other countries to pry Intels off detainees as we do,” ■■■■■■■■ said once. The Americans obviously were not satisfied with the results achieved by their “torture allies.”

  But I think when torture comes into play, things get out of control. Torture doesn’t guarantee that the detainee cooperates. In order to stop torture, the detainee has to please his assailant, even with untruthful, and sometimes misleading, Intels; sorting information out is time-consuming. And experience shows that torture doesn’t stop or even reduce terrorist attacks: Egypt, Algeria, Turkey are good examples. On the other hand, discussion has brought tremendously good results. After the unsuccessful attack on the Egyptian president in Addis Ababa, the government reached a cease-fire with Al Gawaa al-Islamiyah, and the latter opted later on for a political fight. Nevertheless, the Americans had learned a lot from their torture-practicing allies, and they were working closely together.

  When the boat reached the coast, ■■■■■ and his colleague dragged me out and made me sit, crossing my legs. I was moaning from the unbearable pain.

  “Uh.… Uh… ALLAH… ALLAH.… I told you not to fuck with us, didn’t I?” said Mr. X, mimicking me.* I hoped I could stop moaning, because the gentleman kept mimicking me and blaspheming the Lord. However, the moaning was necessary so I could breathe. My feet were numb, for the chains stopped the blood circulation to my hands and my feet; I was happy for every kick I got so I could alter my position. “Do not move Motherfucker!” said ■■■■■, but sometimes I couldn’t help changing position; it was worth the kick.

  “We appreciate everybody who works with us, thanks gentlemen,” said ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■.† I recognized his voice; although he was addressing his Arab guests, the message was addressed to me more than anybody. It was nighttime. My blindfold didn’t keep me from feeling the bright lighting from some kind of high-watt projectors.

  “We happy for zat. Maybe we take him to Egypt, he say everything,” said an Arab guy whose voice I had never heard, with a thick Egyptian accent. I could tell the guy was in his late twenties or early thirties based on his voice, his speech, and later on his actions. I could also tell that his English was both poor and decidedly mispronounced. Then I heard indistinct conversations here and there, after which the Egyptian and another guy approached. Now they’re talking directly to me in Arabic:

  “What a coward! You guys ask for civil rights? Guess you get none,” said the Egyptian.

  “Somebody like this coward takes us only one hour in Jordan to spit everything,” said the Jordanian. Obviously, he didn’t know that I had already spent eight months in Jordan and that no miracle took place.

  “We take him to EEEgypt,” said the Egyptian, addressing ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■.

  “Maybe later,” said ■■■■■■■■■.

  “How poor are these Americans! They really are spoiling these fuckers. But now we’re working with them,” said the Egyptian guy, now addressing me directly in Arabic. When I heard Egypt, and a new rendition, my heart was pounding. I hated the endless world tour I was forcibly taking. I seriously thought rendition to Egypt on the spot was possible, because I knew how irritated and desperate the Americans were when it came to my case. The government was and still is misled about my case.

  “But you know we’re working with Americans in the field,” said the Egyptian. He was right: Yemeni detainees had told me that they were interrogated by ■■■■■■■■■■■ and Americans at the same table when they were captured in Karachi and afterward transferred to a secret place on September 11, 2002.*

  After all kinds of threats and degrading statements, I started to miss a lot of the trash talk between the Arabs and their American accomplices, and at one point I drowned in my thoughts. I felt ashamed that my people were being used for this horrible job by a government that claims to be the leader of the democratic free world, a government that preaches against dictatorship and “fights” for human rights and sends its children to die for that purpose: What a joke this government makes of its own people!

  What would the dead average American think if he or she could see what his or her government is doing to someone who has done no crimes against anybody? As much as I was ashamed for the Arabic fellows, I knew that they definitely didn’t represent the average Arab. Arabic people are among the greatest on the planet, sensitive, emotional, loving, generous, sacrificial, religious, charitable, and light-hearted. No one deserves to be used for such a dirty job, no matter how poor he is. No, we are better than that! If people in the Arab world knew what was happening in this place, the hatred against the U.S. would be heavily watered, and the accusation that the U.S. is helping and working together with dictators in our countries would be cemented. I had a feeling, or rather a hope, that these people would not go unpunished for their crimes. The situation didn’t make me hate either Arabs or Americans; I just felt bad for the Arabs, and how poor we are!

  All these thoughts were sliding through my head, and distracted me from hearing the nonsense conversations. After about forty minutes, I couldn’t really tell, ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ instructed the Arabic team to take over. The two guys grabbed me roughly, and since I couldn’t walk on my own, they dragged me on the tips of my toes to the boat. I must have been very near the water, because the trip to the boat was short. I don’t know, they either put me in another boat or in a different seat. This seat was both hard and straight.

  “Move!”

  “I can’t move!”

  “Move, Fucker!” They gave this order knowing that I was too hurt to be able to move. After all I was bleeding from my mouth, my ankles, my wrists, and maybe my nose, I couldn’t tell for sure. But the team wanted to keep the factor of fear and terror maintained.

  “Sit!” said the Egyptian guy, who did most of the talking while both were pulling me down until I hit the metal. The Egyptian sat on my right side, and the Jordanian on my left.

  “What’s your fucking name?” asked the Egyptian.

  “M-O-O-H-H-M-M-EE-D-D-O-O-O-U!” I answered. Technically I couldn’t speak because of the swollen lips and hurting mouth. You could tell I was completely scared. Usually I wouldn’t talk if somebody starts to hurt me. In Jordan, when the interrogator smashed me in the face, I refused to talk, ignoring all his threats. This was a milestone in my interrogation history. You can tell I was hurt like never before; it wasn’t me anymore, and I would never be the same as before. A thick line was drawn between my past and my future with the first hit ■■■■■ delivered to me.

  “He is like a kid!” said the Egyptian accurately, addressing his Jordanian colleague. I felt warm between them both, though not for long. With the cooperation of the Americans, a long torture trip was being prepared.

  I couldn’t sit straight in th
e chair. They put me in a kind of thick jacket which fastened me to the seat. It was a good feeling. However, there was a destroying drawback to it: my chest was so tightened that I couldn’t breathe properly. Plus, the air circulation was worse than the first trip. I didn’t know why, exactly, but something was definitely going wrong.

  “I c.… a… a… n’t br… e… a… the!”

  “Suck the air!” said the Egyptian wryly. I was literally suffocating inside the bag around my head. All my pleas and my begging for some free air ended in a cul-de-sac.

  I heard indistinct conversations in English, I think it was ■■■■■ and his colleague, and probably ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■. Whoever it was, they were supplying the Arab team with torture materials during the 3 or 4 hour trip. The order went as follows: They stuffed the air between my clothes and me with ice-cubes from my neck to my ankles, and whenever the ice melted, they put in new, hard ice cubes. Moreover, every once in a while, one of the guards smashed me, most of the time in the face. The ice served both for the pain and for wiping out the bruises I had from that afternoon. Everything seemed to be perfectly prepared. People from cold regions might not understand the extent of the pain when ice-cubes get stuck on your body. Historically, kings during medieval and pre-medieval times used this method to let the victim slowly die. The other method, of hitting the victim while blindfolded in inconsistent intervals, was used by the Nazis during World War II. There is nothing more terrorizing than making somebody expect a smash every single heartbeat.

  “I am from Hasi Matruh, where are you from?” said the Egyptian, addressing his Jordanian colleague. He was speaking as if nothing was happening. You could tell he was used to torturing people.

  “I am from the south” answered the Jordanian. I tried to keep my prayers in my heart. I could hardly remember a prayer, but I did know I needed the Lord’s help, as I always do, and in that direction went my prayers. Whenever I was conscious, I drowned in my thoughts. I finally had gotten used to the routine, ice-cubes until melted, smashing. But what would it be like if I landed in Egypt after about twenty-five hours of torture? What would the interrogation there look like? ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ an ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ described his unlucky trip from Pakistan to Egypt to me; so far everything I was experiencing, like the ice-cubes and smashing, was consistent with ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ story. So I expected electric shocks in the pool. How much power can my body, especially my heart, handle? I know something about electricity and its devastating, irreversible damage: I saw ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ collapsing in the blocks a couple of times every week with blood gushing out of his nose until it soaked his clothes. ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ was a Martial art trainer and athletically built.