The Mauritanian (Guantánamo Diary)

Content Warning: This section references torture, graphic violence, racism, and Islamophobia.

Slahi lived abroad for 12 years, in Germany and Canada, and returned to his home country, Mauritania, in January 2000: “I left Canada mainly because the US had pitted their security services on me, but they didn’t arrest me, they just started to watch me” (74). He traveled through Brussels to Dakar, Senegal. In Dakar, Slahi met Hamoud and Mohamed Salem—whom he called his brothers—and their friends. All five were arrested and interrogated separately: “I honestly was not prepared for this injustice” (76).

The author was questioned about Ahmed Ressam of the Millennium Plot. He was confused about why he, who wasn’t a US citizen and had never applied to enter the US, was being questioned about his views on the US. The author knew that those who visited Afghanistan, Chechnya, or Bosnia for innocent reasons “were being passed back and forth like a soccer ball” (88). Ultimately, the Senegalese officially released Slahi to Mauritania, where he hadn’t been since 1993: “I was coming back, but this time as a terrorism suspect who was going to be hidden in some secret hole” (89).