Mohamedou Ould Slahi is a man who the whole world learned about after the terrible terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. By coincidence, he was suspected of collaborating with Al Qaeda. For this, he was imprisoned for more than 14 years. But despite all the hardships and trials, he was able to withstand and not break.
Mohamedou Ould Slahi biography
The boy was born on December 21, 1970 in the village of Roso in southern Mauritania in an ordinary Muslim family. He was the ninth of twelve children. At the time of graduation from primary school, the family changed their place of residence, moving to the capital Nouakchott (“the place where the wind blows”). Soon the boy’s father died. Mohammed grew up as a believing young man, read the Koran and already in his teens knew it by heart. The guy excelled in his studies, which gave him the opportunity to receive a grant from the Society. Carl Duisberg Society (Carl Duisberg Society) to study in Germany. Slahi became the first member of the family who received a higher education, and even in a European country.
For some time he doubted whether he should leave his home, but relatives convinced him of the opposite. So, in 1988, a young Mauritanian went to Germany full of hopes and expectations. After graduating from the University of Duisburg, Mohammed became an electrical engineer and wanted to get a job in his specialty. In 1991, he made the decision to go to Afghanistan to fight against the communist government on the US-backed side. To do this, he trained at the al-Farouk military camp, after which he took an oath of allegiance to al-Qaeda. After that, Mohammed returned to Germany, and six months later he returned to Afghanistan, where during the hostilities he was a soldier in a mortar battery in the province of Gardez. After the fall of the regime of Mohammed Najibullah, in the spring of 1992, Slahi again went to Germany. Subsequently, he repeatedly stated that this was the end of his participation in the Al-Qaeda organization.
According to the memoirs of Mohammed, after the fall of the communist regime, conflicts began in the Mujahideen groups for the right to lead the rebel force. Our hero returned to Germany because he did not want to fight against his own. For the next seven years he lived and worked in this country. In 1999, Slakhy was forced to leave for Canada, because the German authorities did not extend his visa. About a year Mohammed was in Montreal. At first he lived with his classmate, and then in a Sunni mosque as a hafiz. The mosque was visited by a large number of Muslims. Within a month of Mohammed’s arrival in Montreal, Algerian exile and al-Qaeda member Ahmed Ressam was arrested.
Despite the fact that Ressam left this French city before the arrival of Slakhy, subsequently the US government tried by all means to ensure that Mohammed confirmed that they knew each other and cooperated. Life in Canada was difficult and in January 2000 Slakhy returned to his homeland. In Mauritania, he worked in his specialty and was with his family. The life of a young man changed after the tragic events of September 11, 2001. US authorities suspected Slakhi of organizing the attack, as his cousin Abu Hafs was the right hand of Osama bin Laden and was hiding from the government. All this time, he was periodically interrogated, and after the terrorist attack, the interest of the authorities in his person, Mohammed, increased a hundredfold.
On November 20, 2001, the Mauritanian police take the guy from home for supposedly another interrogation. He was even allowed to go to the station in his car. Just from that moment, a new terrible story began in the life of this man. For the first eight months after his arrest, Mohammed was detained in Jordan and Afghanistan. And then all hell broke loose.
Mohamedou Ould Slahi and his Guantanamo diary
In July 2002, Slahi is transferred from the Afghan base to the Cuban maximum security prison Guantanamo Bay. When moving to a new destination, he did not have the opportunity to see what was happening around him, as he was blindfolded. For almost a year, Mohammed’s family did not know where he was or what had happened, until the younger brother Yahdi accidentally stumbled upon an article in the weekly Der Spiegel, which stated that Mohammed Ould Slahi was a Guantanamo prisoner.
In order for Mohammed to acknowledge his collaboration with al-Qaeda, between 2003 and 2004, he was subjected to a “special interrogation plan” approved personally by the Minister of Defense. Torture consisted of prolonged isolation, humiliation of a psychological, physical and sexual nature, as well as death threats to family members. Everything was done in order to break the will of the prisoner and force him to confess to what he did not commit. For a long time Slakhy did not have legal protection, and only after some time lawyer Nancy Hollander took up his case. Most were convinced that Slakhy was a terrible criminal, but Nancy wanted to find out if this person was a terrorist or not and help if he was not guilty. In 2005, while in prison, the prisoner writes 466 pages of diaries, where he tells everything that happened to him.
In 2008 Slakhy uses the right to appeal against his detention. From August to December 2009, District Judge Robertson considered the application and on March 22, 2010 decided to release him. But the US government appealed and the case was sent back for retrial.
In January 2015, based on the notes that Slakhy gave to his lawyer, the book “Guantanamo Diary” is published in the United States. Translations of the book will be released by publishers from 19 countries over the next two weeks. The details of Slakhy’s case are revealed to the public. Thanks to the work of a lawyer and her assistant, the US authorities release the prisoner from custody without bringing any charges. This joyful event took place on October 16, 2016. The Mauritanian left the territory of the prison in handcuffs, with his eyes and ears closed. The next day he landed at Nouakchott airport. Almost 15 years later, Mohammed returned home and was reunited with his family. The joy of liberation was overshadowed only by the death of the dearest person, the mother, who never waited for her son.
Mohamedou Ould Slahi today
After his release from Guantanamo Mohammed, no further charges were brought against him. There is information that he got married and has three sons, whose photos he occasionally publishes on Instagram. He writes books and helps people. In 2021, Kevin McDonald’s film “The Mauritanian” was released, based on real events from the life of Mohammed. Undoubtedly, this man has already left his mark on both American and Mauritanian history.
Tahar Rahim, who played the main role in the film, after meeting his prototype, was delighted with this man. He said that if he did not know that this is a true story, it would be difficult for him to believe all this. Truly, only great Faith and love helped Mohammed survive all the trials and, no matter what, not lose hope and faith in goodness.