The Mauritanian (Guantánamo Diary)

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

On September 29, 2001, Slahi attended the wedding of his niece, Zeinebou Mint Elmamy, and was invited to a dinner organized by a respected man, Ahmed Ould El Moctar Ould Khattary. Mauritania has elaborate courtship and wedding customs that differ regionally. For example, courtship occurs in the presence of the bride’s family, premarital sex is forbidden, and the man’s family is responsible for the dowry. At the time, the US was offering a reward of $25 million for the capture of Slahi’s cousin Mahfouz Ould al-Walid.

Mauritania’s national security agency, La Direction de la Sureté de l’Etat (DSE), called Slahi, picked him up, arrested him on behalf of the US, and took him to a “secret, well-known jail” (114). He called his arrest “political drug-dealing” (115) between the US and Mauritania. The author erased all his phone contacts, and his family home and place of employment were searched. He spent several days in jail before being asked various questions by the DSE and US agent Lee about Ahmed Ressam, his friends Karim Mehdi and Christian Ganczarski, hotel reservations, and his long-distance phone calls to his brother while in Germany.