The Mauritanian (Guantánamo Diary)

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

On November 29, 2001, Slahi’s airplane landed in Amman, Jordan. He was handcuffed and earmuffed, and a bag was placed over his head. His future interrogator, Officer Rami, was present as he disembarked. Because Slahi was blindfolded, he focused on voices and outside noise like car horns. When his blindfold was removed, he noticed pictures of the Jordanian leaders King Abdullah and his father, Hussein. The intake clerk at the prison took his basic information and the reason for his detention. This was during Ramadan, so Slahi stayed awake through the first night, which he describes as “the worst.” The author spent a total of eight months imprisoned in Jordan and wasn’t permitted to contact his family. During this time, Slahi couldn’t eat much because he deeply missed his family, and the “depression and fear were just too much” (156).

Interrogations in Jordan typically occurred at eight o’ clock in the evening and one o’ clock in the morning. Slahi was handcuffed and blindfolded for transport to the interrogation room. He overheard others being questioned about their connections to Chechnya. During the interrogation, under US pressure, Slahi explained that he sometimes used the name Abdallah, “God’s servant,” in Canada because he “found it impolite to correct” a man who used it by mistake (161).