Mohamedou Ould Slahi claims he was subjected to brutal treatment, including being forced to drink salt water and repeatedly beaten. The former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld should be charged with conspiracy to torture in light of the alleged ill-treatment β including sexual abuse β documented by Mohamedou Ould Slahi during his 12 years detention without charge in Guantanamo Bay, his lawyer has claimed.
The year-old describes how he was told he would be taught about "great American sex" and then he was tortured and forced to have sexual intercourse with female interrogators. The actors Colin Firth, Stephen Fry and Riz Ahmed, along with musician Brian Eno and novelist Elif Shafak, are among those backing a new campaign being launched today to free the year-old detainee.
Mr Slahi fought with al-Qaeida in Afghanistan when they were being backed by the US in their fight to oust the Soviet regime, but claims he left the group in He was arrested in November in his home country, Mauritania, and taken to Amman by the Jordanian military β where he was interrogated and held for more than seven months. He has never been charged with any crime, and a US federal judge ordered his release four years ago. But an appeal against the decision by the US government means he is one of inmates remaining at the prison β including Briton Shaker Aamer.
Teaching himself English with the help of his guards, in Mr Slahi wrote a page draft of his diary by hand. It details his suffering at the hands of his interrogators. This was not confined to physical beatings, he writes.
On one occasion, he recalls in a partly redacted account how two female interrogators allegedly sexually abused him. At the same time they were talking dirty to me, and playing with my sexual parts. Having sex with somebody is not considered torture. Will it work or can they resist it? I have to hope that he will get out and that this book will help We have to count on the court of public opinion to release him.
