How Guantanamo Bay Actually Works | Authorized Account | Insider

[00:00] My name is Mohamedou Ould Slahi. I was held  and detained in Guantanamo Bay for 15 years.   I was never charged or convicted of any crime.  And this is everything I'm authorized to tell  

[00:12] you. Guantanamo Bay was designed from  the beginning to undercut the rule of   law. Escaping was impossible. There are so  many gates and so many levels of security.  

[00:29] Even if you miraculously get out of everything  and survive the shot of the towers and survive   the mines outside, you find yourself in the water.  If you are under interrogation like in my case,  

[00:43] you are inside the cell. You can shout  all you want. No one is going to hear you. I will never forget my first night in Guantanamo  Bay. August the 5th of 2002. Before that flight,  

[01:04] I never heard of the place. I was kidnapped  right after 9/11 and I was held incommunicado   and I remember being dragged out of the plane. I  was walking dead. I was under constant punishment  

[01:21] for I think 37 hours. The only thing I was  feeling was total and utter terror, confusion,   and disorientation, and still feel to this day the  beating. We were taken to a place and I stayed the  

[01:41] best part of the day under the baking sun. If you  remember the photo that they showed, those people   kneeling with goggles, blindfold. I was one of  those people. They put me in those red infamous  

[02:00] uniforms. They took my pictures, my fingerprints,  and it was almost surreal. They asked what   languages you speak. So back then I told them I  spoke Arabic, German and French. So my English  

[02:15] was not functional. They start to interrogate me.  I don't know how long they took me to Oscar Block.   Oscar block is one of the torture blocks. There  was India block. I went also to India block. But  

[02:34] my first torture block was Oscar. And Oscar was  like divided to small what we call them fridges,   very small cell, 6x8. And I never forget my first  night when the door slam shut. There was nothing  

[02:54] in there. And I am claustrophobic. I start to  panic. I couldn't breathe. There was only this   bean hole, a very small hall through which they  give you food and they talk to you. They also do  

[03:08] the head count. When they count the detainees,  they do it every 15 minutes or so. And because   this way you cannot sleep because they will open  it, you know, it's very heavy metal. This is when  

[03:21] it hit me. I know there was no one to save me.  I knew I was on my own against the most powerful   country in the world, arguably the most powerful  country ever. And they can do anything they want.

[03:44] For 9 months, my whole time, I was with general  population. I was very happy. I could talk to   other detainees. My neighbors, some were very  famous; David Hicks from Australia and another  

[04:01] detainee Moath al-Alawi. I was general population  but I was in a cell. So we were not...like I was   not sitting with them or anything. One of the  British guy and the Australian guy he started  

[04:14] to teach me English, you know just I just  hear and then memorize. I wasn't allowed to   have papers. I wasn't allowed to have pens. In  that social order in a prison, leaders emerge.  

[04:28] People who want to be a leader with religious  authority or age authority. People with knowledge,   especially of the English language. If you know  the English language that's a privilege because  

[04:41] the guards use you to translate between them and  other detainees and that gives you like a special   place where you can like expect detainees to give  you a special respect. The guards were completely  

[04:57] aware of everything that was going on and they  used to their advantage. When they see leaders,   they want to talk to the leaders to keep control  of the prison population. What also they do,  

[05:13] they spread rumors. They put a rumor in  one block and they see how it develops   in the other blocks because they want to  see the communication between the blocks,   how information flows. They relay messages but  mostly fake news that was spread by interrogators.

[05:39] In the general population in Guantanamo Bay, I  was taken to interrogation every single day. Let   me tell you about enhanced interrogation  technique. After 9/11, American public,  

[05:55] and rightly so, was putting a lot of pressure  on the government to hold people accountable   who killed 3,000 people. But American government  after two years was none the wiser. And instead of  

[06:10] being honest with the public, saying we screwed  up, they said, "We think those people who are   who already arrested are bad people, but how  can we make them bad people? How do could we  

[06:24] bump them from detainee to real criminal who are  responsible? We want full-fledged confessions."   Full-fledged confessions they did not get. So they  want to use torture. What was applied on me, it  

[06:39] started with sleep deprivation. The interrogation  was 24 hours. I remained in that 70 days. So,   and then they threatened me with like sexual  assault. They did to me sexual assault three  

[07:01] times. What was done was stripping and then  touching you. There was no penetration. I was   waterboarded once. I almost died. And you know  the problem enhanced interrogation technique  

[07:20] even if they apply them you know 100% the way  it was written is torture but they went beyond   them because it's a Pandora box. I give you two  example. One time they took me to the fridge,  

[07:42] a place where they put you. They keep you very  cold and then they would come to me and then   they would pour water on me and the pour water  would get cold and then they told me they would  

[07:57] keep doing this until I decide to speak. I was so  cold and hypothermia start to set in I couldn't   speak and then this Sergeant, I never forget it.  Her name is Mary. Sergeant Mary, she asked him  

[08:14] to stop I don't know whether she saw that I was  dying and the other one is when they took me for   the water boarding and beating I was beating  everywhere I couldn't breathe but I survived.  

[08:32] And if you survived, you have certain strength.  But there are people who did not survive. That's   why they did not allow journalists to Guantanamo.  They allow now the highly orchestrated visit where  

[08:45] they show you only what they want to show you.  When Barack Obama came, that they stop torture.   Torture was already illegal. It was illegal  during George W. Bush's time. And after his time,  

[09:00] and today. But if you're powerful enough, you can  torture people and you can get away with it. You   know what really kept me going? My saving grace I  contend was the teaching of my grandma. My grandma  

[09:16] always told me Mohamedou, Allah wants you always  to be a kind person. So to protest my detention,   there are two things I personally did. None of  them worked. So I started with hunger strike and  

[09:35] I did five days and I stopped because I knew  I couldn't continue because my plan was not   to die and it's painful. And the other thing I  did I refused to talk to my interrogators. They  

[09:53] would ask me question. Your name? No answer.  Where are you from? No answer. Always would   tell them in the beginning, you need to tell me  why you kidnapped me and I will talk to you. As  

[10:10] long as you don't answer this question, I  will not talk to you. And this was broken   with torture. When they torture me, I was  talking like a bird, like a singing bird.

[10:29] I'm going to talk about the difference  between my treatment through the FBI,   CIA and the military intelligence. I'm tempted  to say they are working together very closely.  

[10:41] CIA people who interrogate me in Guantanamo Bay,  they did not present themselves. I only assume   they are CIA. But FBI will present themselves;  this is my name and I'm FBI. But they give you  

[10:55] fake name as it turned out. So Rob Sidler and  Chris were my interrogators. Later on I learned   that those are fake names. They never tortured  me. But they told me if I don't talk to them,  

[11:10] there is another team that would come and  torture me. And I was so stupid and I told   them bring it on. This is when Richard Zuley's  team, (Richard Zuley is a contractor), he start  

[11:22] to bring his team. They start to torture me and  they brought me a letter from the department of   defense and the letter said that they would kidnap  my mother. They insinuated she would be, she would  

[11:37] be also sexually assaulted, and they say because  I refused to confess to my crimes. And I lost, I   lost it. I told them, I would confess to anything  you want. I'm sorry I was not cooperating. And so  

[11:58] early 2004, I wrote my confession. They told me  to write my confession. And after I did that,   two things happened. First, the good guys of the  CIA with the necktie who don't torture people came  

[12:16] to collect the fruits. Second thing what happened  I was designated for death penalty and I remember   same guy who helped me write the confession he  came to me and said you are now a death penalty  

[12:33] case. I'm not a brave guy but I wasn't scared I  had no feeling I just was looking at him with his  

[12:45] lips moving explaining to me what death penalty  means everybody will die. I, you, your neighbor,   everybody will die. But the fact that someone  comes to you and looks into your eyes and say,  

[13:01] I am going to kill you and I'm starting the  process to kill you. That's another level   of dealing with our mortality. I wasn't thinking  about death. I was thinking about all the things I  

[13:20] regretted in my life. The thing unraveled in early  2005. In mid 2005 I received for the first time my   American lawyers. And along with them I was also  assigned to a new prosecutor, Air Force Colonel  

[13:38] Moe Davis. The government did not want me to go  to any court. They did not allow me to go to their   periodic review and they made these kangaroo court  what they call C.R.T. (Combative Review Tribunal),  

[13:55] something like that. And then nothing. In 2009 my  lawyer succeeded to get a hearing and I testified   in the hearing. I wasn't allowed to go to court. I  could only do through a computer connection video  

[14:12] call because I was not allowed to go to the US.  In 2010, I received the decision of the judge.   He said there is no evidence to hold Mohamedou and  he ordered my release. And then I was stuck in the  

[14:29] system. It's four years after that. They allowed  me to go to a PRB. This is a periodic review board   set up by Obama administration. I stayed seven  long years in a prison after I was declared  

[14:46] innocent. The dilemma of Guantanamo Bay the only  way out if you had committed crime because they   could say he did commit this we can convict him  and then he can get out. But you didn't commit  

[15:00] anything. You've seen too much. You know and then  you are unreleasable. As later my government told   me, when they asked the US government for  my release they told them he's unreleasable.

[15:20] When you come to the prison as soon as you enter  the door you are mine. I will explain to you. Of   course you are escorted and you go inside and  then you will go to the next gate at least you  

[15:32] have to go through fourth gates in order to  get to my area. And then after that you have   to go inside a building, there's a door. And then  inside that building there is a cell inside that   building. So it's like a maze the cell where 6x8  there is a metal bed which is part of the cell  

[15:56] there is a hole and a sink in the middle of the  door there is a bean hole through which they give   you food. In the beginning during the torture  program there is no...you don't leave the cell.  

[16:10] The interrogation is inside but when the torture  program died down, I had the right to go outside,   outside the cell. Of course the yard was five by  five. There is like a perimeter very long wall.  

[16:31] Snap screen they call it. In 15 years I never saw  the sun rise or sun goes down. Never in 15 years.   Sometime I climb try to climb a little bit but I  never made it to see the sun rise or the sunset.  

[16:49] Cross talk meaning talking to a detainee. You  are not allowed to talk to them. That happened   actually. It was not allowed to talk to a detainee  from another block. When the detainee is with you,  

[17:04] you can talk to them because he's next to  you. But when the detainee is another block,   you cannot shout and communicate with them. If  you are under interrogation like in my case,   there is no way for you to talk to  anyone anyway. You are inside the cell.

[17:25] Do you know how much it costs to operate  Guantanamo or like how much it cost to keep   somebody there? The information I got consistently  from the people who spoke to me in Guantanamo Bay,   either interrogators or guards, it's about $1  million a month. It's crazy because this is a very  

[17:44] big business. If you have a good contract with  the government, they send you to Guantanamo Bay,   let's say, to provide clothes. We have  no clothes, just a uniform. And then they  

[17:57] bring like almost slave labor. Like they  call them TCN, third country nationals,   mostly from the Philippines and Jamaica. Those are  the people who do the heavy lifting of cooking,  

[18:12] cleaning and driving stuff around. They also  are the builders. So those big companies, prison   companies, very big establishment in the US, they  come get very fat contracts in Guantanamo Bay and  

[18:27] then employ like Jamaicans and Filipinos. This is  something I saw with my eyes. Of course, I did not   ask them what they paid them, but the guard they  joke about them. They call them "one buck a day."  

[18:41] That's their name. A guard is paid the same thing  whether he was in Guantanamo or in Iraq. It's very   public because you are paid based on your rank and  that's very known something you can go online and  

[18:58] see it. I think this is only like a shot in the  dark. I think most money goes to intelligence   contractors like psychologist who can sit with  you and tell them how to break a detainee. Not  

[19:15] even the FBI or the CIA like contractors. They  call it the sliding door. So it's a very corrupt   system. So if you are an FBI agent, you are 15,  you work 10 years, 15 years, you said goodbye, I'm  

[19:33] leaving. You come back knocking, you say now I'm  I want to be a contractor. And then there when you   make the real money and that's where the money in  Guantanamo Bay is. The guard's job is to keep you  

[19:47] imprisoned safely. If you are sick, they call the  medics. They serve your food because you cannot   serve yourself and they keep you incarcerated.  If you try to run away, they force you inside  

[20:01] yourself. If you become irate, they will put you  in chains. I remember this guard. They told me   to clean their room. I want to clean their room  because I want to spy to see what they're doing.  

[20:16] So, they were lazy. His name is Edmond. How do I  know his name? Even though they were like hiding   their names, they told me, "Come clean our space."  I said, "This is my opportunity." After I'm done,  

[20:32] he gave me one Pepsi. So then we started like the  relationship, you know, I am like the slave. This   is the privilege of to be nobody, you know. I was  important in my family, important in my country.  

[20:52] But now I was nobody. Anyone can beat me. No one  respects you. Anyone can order you around. Steve   Wood whom I met for the first time in 2004  came to my cell and he asked me to drink a  

[21:09] cup of coffee with him. He was the sergeant of the  guards. He asked me whether I can play card games.   Then I say he just teach me and he taught me  Rummy. And then I, you know, start smoking him.  

[21:23] He said, he says in his story that he smoked  me but I smoked him and now we are friend. He   came to visit me two times in Mauritania, one  time in the Netherlands, you know. And I'm the  

[21:38] godfather of his daughter, Summer. He's the  godfather of my son, Ahmed. And Steve and I   are working to make the world a better place  through understanding, dialogue, and freedom.

[21:57] When I was captured, I was  living and working in Mauritania.

[22:17] The backstory of why American intelligence was  interested in me was very simple. I received a   phone call from my cousin who was a friend of  Osama bin Laden using the phone of Osama bin  

[22:34] Laden. Very legitimate call, family call. He wants  me to help his father who was sick, held in the   hospital. That was it. And I was completely, you  know, blissfully unaware. And from that moment on,  

[22:53] completely not to my knowledge, I was being  followed. Of course later on my family talked   to my cousin what's went on when this was public.  He said I did not use the phone of us. He said  

[23:11] that and I tend to believe him and then 9/11  happened and several weeks after 911 I was with   my mother. I just I finished working. Back then  I was programmer an IT person. Back then you have  

[23:28] to code every single line on your own. So and I  had a very good living you know for Mauritanian   standards. I was taking care of my mother,  taking care of my family, taking care of my  

[23:40] sisters and two police agents came in civilian  clothes, plain clothes. They have this air of   confidence authority. There is no arrest warrant.  They don't need an arrest warrant. They only need  

[23:59] marching orders from the President who received  marching orders from the United States of America.

[24:22] I was kidnapped and taken to Jordan. So the United  States of America asked Mauritania to arrest me   and they said why you want him arrested? They said  because he did unspeakable crimes in relation to  

[24:40] 9/11. Mauritania is very small country back  then, 3 million or 2.5 million. So they took   me to Jordan and Jordan was a very well oiled  machine of CIA torture and disappearances. I wish  

[24:57] I could tell the viewers here that I was brave or  I wasn't scared. I was so scared I almost lost my  

[25:09] mind. I was taken to Jordan where I stayed in  darkness eight long months. I was beaten. I was  

[25:23] made to listen to tort other people being tortured  all night long. I spent almost a year in other   black site namely in Jordan and Bagram that is  an American air base in Afghanistan. I never saw  

[25:41] my mom again and I could to this day the image  of my mom in the rear view mirror is seared in   my memory. She was praying frantically.  She held her prayer beads and she was  

[25:58] praying for my return. A return that never, never  happened. 11 years after that in Guantanamo Bay,   two officers came to me and they told me,  "Mohamedou, your brother died and your mom too."  

[26:16] And then my world collapsed. In Guantanamo Bay,  especially for me who was in isolation, you have  

[26:28] to grief inside yourself. You have to pray alone  and even so that you know we were not allowed to   have grieving counsel and imam. And I remember  him bringing me a a priest, but not any priest,  

[26:50] a black priest. And that's why I love American  sense of a humor because they figured, okay, this   guy is a Muslim. What a big difference could be  between a Muslim and a black guy, black Christian.  

[27:05] And this poor guy started reading from the Bible  and so sweating. I said do it. You don't have to   do anything. I you are free to go. And then they  left and then I started like you know punishing my  

[27:22] body and I stood up and sung the Quran 12 hours,  6 hours, and then I collapsed in myself. And then   later on I woke up and then I sunk six hours and  I think after one or two days, I don't remember,  

[27:40] they took me to the hospital they put me on  suicide watch because I was completely devastated.

[27:54] So I was in general population when I started  to write my diaries. I did not have papers. I   did not have a pen. But I did steal papers and pen  from my neighbors who had the right to have them.  

[28:14] I wrote in Arabic, in French and in German at the  same time. I did not write in English because my   English was not good enough. And then in June  2003 when I was put in the program of torture,  

[28:29] they took everything. They found everything and  then they deprived me of everything I wrote. I   would wait until end of 2005 and I was given the  right to communicate with my lawyers. I could  

[28:47] write them letters. I wrote the whole diary in  eight weeks. I wrote very small. I wrote on both   sides of the papers because I want to look small.  I didn't want them to think, "Oh, he's writing a  

[28:59] lot." Then I kept sending them, numbering them  until I wrote everything. In Guantanamo Bay,   there is no 100% privacy between me and my lawyer.  So, the government can see also the letters. So,  

[29:18] my lawyer can read my letter. She can close it  and give it back to the government. The government   said, "We will not read it. Just put it there."  But don't talk about it. But if my lawyer said,   "Oh, this is good information. I'm taking this  to my to my office and this could help me also  

[29:39] my publicity." They said, "You cannot take it  from here from there is a room in DC just for   our letters. If you take it, we have to read it."  That's exactly what happens in my case because she  

[29:54] saw this is very important material. I need to  take it because this would prove his innocence.   They read they said we read it. It's bad. It's  not going. And then it stays with them seven  

[30:09] or eight years between seven and eight years.  They refusing they were refusing to give it to   my lawyer. And after a big battle, they took out a  lot of it. Heavily censored. They give her a copy  

[30:27] that is heavily censored. 2015, the heavy censored  version was published. I was in prison. It was the   first book ever written as the first account by a  detainee in Guantanamo. I never forget that day.  

[30:44] I was sitting pretending to learn Spanish and  in myself and the first news item I think was   my photo with my book. I felt free inside  prison because when your story is out there,  

[31:04] when your family knows you never betrayed  their values, the values you were raised on,   that is when you feel free. When you know  also the world is sympathizing with you,  

[31:21] you know because you are not a criminal, you  know you are being wrong. My book is called   Guantanamo Diary. There is also a companion of  the film with the same name, the Mauritanian.

[31:44] I was released October 17th, almost 9 years ago.  I was released to Mauritania. I never forget that   day. Never. I remember this Air Force captain,  blonde. She stuck her head through the bean hole  

[32:03] and she was smiling the most beautiful smile. I  never saw her before. She said, "You know that   you are going home." She was happier than I was.  You know that shows you character you know they  

[32:16] shows you that the people a lot of people who  are working there they really they really were   aware of the pain they were causing to families to  people who were incarcerated you know wrongfully.  

[32:31] I remember what I had in myself. I had a couple  of DVDs of the show Two and a Half Men. And if   you are watching that, you should be ashamed of  yourself. And I had Shakespeare plays. I read  

[32:49] them. I didn't understand jack. And they were  just the thick book. Everybody who could see in   myself Shakespeare plays think that I'm a smart  guy. And I had the photos of my family over the  

[33:04] years. I was horrified to meet my family. I and  I wouldn't recognize them because the kids I left   two years they are now 17. The person I left with  15 years is now 30 years of age. Faces changes.  

[33:27] Then I would look at the photos and test myself  photo after photo and then write the names on the   backside just like you know those training cards  you know I was released to Mauritania. The first  

[33:42] things I did first I walked very long I went to  the dunes I want to see the sunset like looking   straight at Guantanamo Bay because the only thing  that separate Mauritania from Guantanamo Bay is  

[33:55] the sea. I could look straight at Guantanamo Bay  and watch the sunset. And I ate thieboudienne,   one of our national dishes. Is really good. Like  rice with fish. Very spicy. I drank Mauritanian  

[34:14] tea. Life's good. Life's good. I'm telling you.  I don't know how to explain freedom to people who   never lost their freedom because it's very hard.  I couldn't sleep for nights and I remember for the  

[34:32] first time I had a phone and then like the whole  world opens and I would watch YouTube's over and  

[34:44] over and over useless videos completely no life  what I'm doing now I won the peace prize of the   Netherlands I have my own consultancy company  in the Netherlands. I live now in Rotterdam,  

[35:05] actually it's called Rotterdam. Every day I  walk the street and I never forget like almost   four years ago when I came to the country for  the first time the biggest lesson kindness to  

[35:20] be kind to everyone and learning because learning  English in prison saved my life people start talk   to me understanding me I start so after I want  to repeat that in the Netherlands and my first  

[35:35] day I start speaking the language I integrated  so quickly and I went and I did all the test and   I passed the test and then I was like granted  the citizenship and it was so much easier to  

[35:54] to travel with a Dutch passport. I'm  banned from visiting the US for life   and that's a win-win situation by the way.  I'm not planning anytime soon to go there.

[36:12] Guantanamo Bay was established by the former  President George W. Bush through authorization   to use military force because of what they called  preemptive strike doctrine or something like that.  

[36:34] What does it mean? If you watch movies,  it means something like minority report   on steroid. Meaning that the president want  to the people with power like military, CIA,  

[36:51] FBI, tell them I don't want you to take criminals  and put them on trial. I want to take people who   would be criminal and arrest them. So there is no  crime. About 900 people were taken to Guantanamo  

[37:07] Bay. More people died in Guantanamo Bay than  people were convicted. Those are some of the   cases we know happened because they were revealed.  But there are people who died and we do not know  

[37:23] about them. They just disappeared. If you come to  Guantanamo Bay as someone who is not a prisoner,   then you will see a sign that says Guantanamo  Bay JTF, which is joint task force. JDG, joint  

[37:39] detention group, honor bound to defend freedom.  Why should you convince anyone that you are a   person of honor and that your duty is to defend  freedom? And why should it be in the most infamous  

[37:58] notorious prison arguably in the world? As of  January, there are 15 people in Guantanamo Bay.   And we are only talking about people in Guantanamo  Bay. We never talk about the families of people in  

[38:15] Guantanamo Bay. We never talk about the families  of the people who lost their loved one on 9/11.   Where is justice for those people? How long is  going to take some of them passed on? Never seen  

[38:33] just never looking at the face of the person  or the persons who killed their loved ones   in cold blood. I know detainees because I am  I belong to the network of former detainees.  

[38:49] One detainer two nights ago text me. He said he's  very cold. He's living in a place it's very cold   and he doesn't have money to buy food. He doesn't  have money to buy a blanket. And we had to start a  

[39:07] reason for him to buy him a blanket and something  to hit the US government is shifting more and   more toward abandoning the values of democracy and  going more to authoritarianism. Guys, I grew up in  

[39:28] a military dictatorship. I know dictatorship when  I see one masked Asians without arrest warrant who   take people away from their neighborhood that's  not a democracy now they doing it on the mainland  

[39:42] of the United N America if you allow this now they  will go for the citizen I am part of campaign to   close Guantanamo Bay specifically the UK campaign  we need more voices because the Guantanamo Bay  

[39:59] It's very symbolic. Guantanamo is not in Russia.  It's not in some far away dictatorship. It's under   the color and authority of the United States of  America. Rule number one, the US government never  

[40:14] makes mistake. There is no accountability.  There was no accountability during the war   crime in Vietnam and there is no accountability  during the war in Iraq or in Afghanistan,  

[40:27] etc., etc. And I did not ask for anything.  I forgave the United States of America.   I forgave the people who did all of  this to me. And I did this for myself.

[41:09] then please subscribe and comment with more  topics that you'd like us to cover in this series.