In this episode, Richard Cox and myself talk about the story of Mohamedou Ould Slahi and the film based on his life and time while imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay Prison in Cuba, "The Mauritanian". Slahi was accused of being involved with Al Qaeda and also being the conduit between members of the "Hamburg Cell" at Al Quds mosque in Germany who were allegedly involved with the September 11th 2001 attacks, and Al Qaeda. However, after his lawyer, Nancy Hollander, agreed to take on his case, all the charges against Slahi were made under extraordinary duress under the Central Intelligence Agency "enhanced interrogation techniques" which were defined as torture. Slahi even detailed his experiences while at Guantanamo Bay, which would later be made into a book "Guantánamo Diary" which was released in 2015.
The discussion also details the abhorrent practices. Salahi was subjected to isolation, temperature extremes, beatings and sexual humiliation by military interrogators. In one incident, he was blindfolded and taken out to sea for a mock execution. Lt. Col Stuart Couch refused to prosecute Salahi in a Military Commission in 2003. He said that "Salahi's incriminating statements—the core of the government's case—had been taken through torture, rendering them inadmissible under U.S. and international law." Slahi was released without a single charge on October 17th 2016.
Mohamedou Ould Salahi (The Mauritanian)