Guantánamo: what torture does to people

Mohamedou Ould Slahi. It was during Ramadan, just a few weeks after the September 11 attacks. I was at home with my mother, my aunt, and my sister when two officers arrived and asked me to go with them. They carried no arrest warrant, no official document. Not long before, I had received a phone call from my cousin, which was a business partner of Osama bin Laden. That was enough for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to put me on file, with orders coming directly from Washington. George W. Bush himself had contacted the Mauritanian president, a military ruler. It pains me deeply to know how closely the CIA and the US government work with dictatorships and military regimes. Before I left, my mother whispered: “Mohamedou, I know why these men came for you.” When I asked why, she replied: “Because you watch too much television. I always told you to stop.” My mother never went to school. My father had died when I was eleven, and she raised us on her own. She was a strong woman with sharp instincts. She knew that, for an authoritarian regime, an informed citizen is a dangerous one. That’s why she kept repeating: “don’t watch television.”

I will never forget that last image of her, reflected in the rearview mirror of the police car as they drove me away. It was the last time I saw her. She died in 2013, while I was still in prison. I cannot put into words the pain I felt when the officers came to tell me.

Mohamedou Ould Slahi. Most of my fellow detainees were from Yemen or Saudi Arabia. They had grown up under authoritarian regimes. I had studied in Europe—I thought of myself as educated, someone who understood human rights. When they spoke about torture, I would reassure them: “Don’t worry, here in the United States they don’t torture.” I still remember my first night of interrogation with an FBI agent. The very first thing he said to me was: “7-6-0.” That was my number. From that moment on, I lost my name. I was no longer a person; I was a number. Later, when the torture began, I realised just how wrong I had been.

Sylvain Savolainen. The CIA’s secret sites are not prisons, nor are they detention centres. They are lawless zones, built to bypass any form of legality. They are torture centres. I currently represent Mr. Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who has been held at Guantánamo illegally and without trial for twenty-three years. For four of those years, he was moved between several CIA torture sites around the world. A doctor appointed by the US government - an expert on torture - confirmed the scale of the damage inflicted on him. She stated she had never seen a man so gravely affected by torture.

This was not the result of improvisation: the US administration produced an official torture programme, with the assistance of psychologists responsible for designing the methods and measuring their effectiveness.

Mohamedou Ould Slahi. To survive, I wrote. I’m not a writer; I’m a computer engineer, the kind of guy who programs annoying on-hold music for customer service lines. But in Guantánamo, writing became a way to escape the pain. With no pen or paper, I first wrote on my own body. Then I borrowed a few sheets from my cellmate and wrote as best I could: a chapter in Arabic, another in German, another in French. Sometimes I even wrote a few lines in English even though I didn’t speak it well yet. After a few months the guards discovered my notebooks and confiscated everything. For me, it felt like losing a child. I was placed in solitary confinement for seventy days. I could not sleep; it was continuous torture. Only three years later, when I met my lawyer Nancy Hollander, was I able to write again. Thanks to her, I was allowed to send letters, and it was from these that Guantánamo Diary was born. If I survived Guantánamo, it was thanks to those letters and to those people: Nancy, Sylvain, the activists, the lawyers, the friends.

Mohamedou Ould Slahi. My release was not the outcome of a genuine judicial process. A U.S. federal judge had ordered my release, but the government disregarded the ruling. I remained in detention for another six or seven years. Eventually, multiple agencies, including the CIA, re-examined my case and decided to release me, without ever putting me on trial.

Sylvain Savolainen. Today, five proceedings are still pending against my client, Mr. Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. Although Guantánamo has a special military commission meant to prosecute incarcerated individuals, in his case the “trial” has remained stuck in preliminary hearings for twelve years. The admissibility of evidence obtained through torture has been debated for all of the past twelve years. In reality, there is no credible judicial process in this U.S. military jurisdiction at Guantánamo. The United Nations has formally recognised his detention as arbitrary. Moreover, Mr. Al-Nashiri’s psychological condition has been so irreparably damaged by torture that a fair trial, under international standards, is no longer possible. Yet he is offered a so-called “deal”: if he pleads guilty, he will be spared execution. Such an arrangement is, of course, a travesty of justice. Given the absence of alternatives, Mr. Al-Nashiri is likely to accept.

What Mohamedou describes is telling. His release was not the result of a transparent judicial process. No fair trial has ever taken place at Guantánamo. This is also a betrayal of the victims of 9/11 themselves, since no credible legal process has enabled them to obtain the truth or participate in a proper trial. Some families of the victims have made it clear: what is happening at Guantánamo cannot be done in their name.

Mohamedou Ould Slahi. One day in solitary confinement, a young American serviceman quietly slipped me a cookie. I seized the moment to ask why he was torturing me. “7-6-0, I don’t have a choice, it’s the only job I’m given,” he replied. I can understand the anger Americans felt after 9/11. But what the U.S. government has done is not justice. A dear friend of mine in New York lost her father that day. She was eleven, the same age I was when I lost mine. Twenty-four years later, she is still waiting for justice. At Guantánamo, almost no one has been tried for 9/11.

Torture does not work; it drives victims to say anything just to end the pain. I was ready to sign anything, to admit to anything. Torture yields nothing but lies. What works is democracy and the rule of law.

Sylvain Savolainen. Under no circumstances can torture be justified. It violates the most fundamental norm of international law : jus cogens, an absolute and non-derogable principle. Just as nothing can justify genocide, nothing can justify torture. These principles are the legacy of our collective history. They go beyond law: they uphold civilization itself. By brutalising an individual, you brutalise an entire society.

Guantánamo is only one link in a wider system. CIA torture centres have been identified and confirmed in Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Morocco, Thailand, Afghanistan, the United Arab Emirates, and elsewhere. These are established, documented facts. And it is precisely because these truths are so disturbing that powerful states now seek to obstruct international justice.

Mohamedou Ould Slahi. For me, forgiveness is not a luxury; it is the best revenge, and the only way to survive.

I believe it was Madiba (Nelson Mandela) who said: “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your ennemies.”

I often use another example that everyone can relate to: after a breakup, you have two choices. Either you forgive your ex, or you stalk them on Instagram. I don’t have time to stalk people. So, I chose forgiveness. I even forgave the man who wanted me dead. Today, we are friends.

I now live in the Netherlands, and every day I try to live as if it were my last on this planet. Each morning, I send myself a message of gratitude on WhatsApp. I am happy - in a world that is not always so.