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As It Happens

'Guantanamo Diary' author struggles with freedom after 14 years in detention

Mohamedou Ould Slahi returned home to Mauritania this week. He had spent the previous 14 years on what he’s called an “endless world tour” of detention and interrogation — courtesy of the United States government. As It Happens host Carol Off speaks with Larry Siems, editor of "Guantanamo Diary".
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US Editor of Guantanamou detainee Mohamedou Ould Slahi's book 'Guantanamo Diary' Larry Siems speaks during a press conference in London on January 20, 2015. (guantanamodiary.com/Ben Stansall/ Getty Images)
As It Happens7:19Freedom means a "jarring transition" for 'Guantanamo Diary' author Mohamedou Ould Slahi

Mohamedou Ould Slahi returned home to Mauritania last month. He had spent the previous 14 years on what he's called an "endless world tour" of detention, most of it at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Slahi was never charged, and a judge ordered his release six years ago. He was finally set free after his diaries became a bestseller — diaries written by hand, inside an isolation hut at Guantanamo.
Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a Guantanamo Bay prisoner who wrote a best-selling book about his experiences in the military prison, poses on October 18, 2016 in Nouakchott, after he was reunited with his family in his native Mauritania on October 17 after 14 years of detention. (Stringer/Getty Images)
 

Larry Siems, the U.S. editor of 'Guantanamo Diary', tells As It Happens host Carol Off, that Slahi's book "was a tremendous act of faith, ultimately, in the American people, that if they just knew his story, that his situation would change."

Originally written in 2005, US officials fought to keep the manuscript from being published. It describes how Slahi turned himself in for questioning in Mauritania in November, 2001 only to be put on rendition flights bound for interrogation and abuse first in Jordan, then in Afghanistan, and finally at Guantanamo Bay.

Siems describes what happened next. "He was one of two men in Guantanamo who were subjected to what the military called 'special projects interrogation', which were intensive, months-long torture regimes. The effects of the isolation, the sleep deprivation, the temperature extremes, the being subjected to loud music, not being able to know whether it's day or night, beating, all of those things — at one point he has a kind of physical and mental collapse and he's hallucinating and hearing voices."
A detainee wearing an orange jump suit surrounded by heavy security at the US Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba in January 2002. (Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images)

"I think what the manuscript really did is humanize him, made the world understand that when you're talking about Guantanamo prisoners you're talking about human beings, and in this case a human being who has has all the qualities we admire in people: curiosity, wit, great sense of humour, sense of beauty, of empathy and even forgiveness. And I think in some ways the release of that manuscript allowed people to prepare themselves for the fact that actually this does not really deserve to be in prison." 


Slahi was flown back to Mauritania on a U.S. military plane. Siems reached him soon after he landed. It was the first time they had been free to speak directly.

"He said, 'I'm exhausted and I'm finding it impossible to sleep in this new environment,' which gave a sense of what an incredible, and jarring transition this must be for him."

For more on Mohamedou Ould Slahi's story, listen to our full interview with Larry Siems.

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