Mohamedou Ould Slahi was born in a small town in Mauritania in
1970. He won a scholarship to attend college in Germany and worked
there for several years as an engineer. He returned to Mauritania
in 2000. The following year, at the behest of the United States, he
was detained by Mauritanian authorities and rendered to a prison in
Jordan; later he was rendered again, first to Bagram Air Force Base
in Afghanistan, and finally, on 5 August 2002, to the US prison at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he was subjected to severe torture. In
2010, a federal judge ordered him immediately released, but the
government appealed that decision. He was cleared and released on
16 October 2016, and repatriated to his native country of
Mauritania. No charges were filed against him during or after this
ordeal.
Larry Siems is a writer and human rights activist and for many
years directed the Freedom to Write Program at PEN American Center.
He is the author of The Torture Report: What the Documents Say
about America's Post-9/11 Torture Program. He lives in New York.
'An extraordinary account... the global war on terror has found in
a Mauritanian captive its true and complete witness' - Guardian
'A vision of hell, beyond Orwell, beyond Kafka' - JOHN LE CARRE
'Unnerving yet ultimately magnificent...there is something special
about Guantanamo Diary that lifts it from human rights polemic to
the realm of literary magic' - Sunday Times
'The work is a kind of dark masterpiece, a sometimes unbearable
epic of pain, anguish and bitter humour' - New York Times
Ask a Question About this Product More... |