According to a Senate Armed Services Committee Report, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" for use on a Guantanamo Bay detainee and Mauritanian national named Mohamedou Ould Salahi, who was believed to be a member of al-Qaeda. According to the summarized transcripts from his Combatant Status Review Tribunal, Salahi admits to going to Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union and training with al-Qaeda in the early 1990s but says that he was never a member. He says he left after the war against the Soviets was over because he "did not want to fight other Muslims." Still, intelligence officials believed he might have valuable intelligence because he was related to Mahfouz Ould al-Walid, who has close ties to Osama bin Laden. Rumsfeld's approval was actually somewhat redundant--Salahi's interrogators had already begun using torture five days prior.
Yesterday, Judge James Robertson issued a classified opinion granting Salahi's petition for habeas corpus, more than seven and a half years after Salahi turned himself in to Mauritanian authorities and was rendered to Jordan, where he admitted to the allegations against him under "pressure and bad treatment." When asked during his CSRT about whether he had a current affiliation with al-Qaeda, Salahi's exact words were, according to transcripts released by the Department of Defense, "I have nothing to do with this shit."
The memo Rumsfeld signed authorized the use of dogs, sensory deprivation, sexual humiliation, and sleep deprivation, among other techniques. Most of the records of his interrogation remain classified. The plan however, was to "replicate and exploit the 'Stockholm Syndrome' between detainee and his interrogators." Salahi was made to stand for several hours while shackled and "exposed to variable lighting patterns and rock music." Salahi's masked interrogator, "Mr. X," told Salahi of a "dream" he had where detainees were filling a grave with a pine box that had Salahi's ISN number on it. Salahi was later shown a letter saying that his mother would be transferred to Guantanamo Bay and pointed out that she would be the only female detained at '"this previously all-male prison environment."
"There are worse things than physical pain," an interrogator told him, according to the report. Salahi, petrified, told an interrogator he was willing to cooperate. The interrogator "congratulated" Salahi "on his decision to tell the whole truth." Then they kept torturing him. A psychologist with the Joint Task Force at Guantanamo Bay, Lt. Cmdr. Diane Zierhoffer, started to think that Salahi might be going insane. She wrote in an e-mail that "Salahi told me he is "hearing voices' now. ... He is worried as he knows this is not normal." Lt. Col. Stuart Couch, the military prosecutor assigned to Salahi's case, refused to prosecute Salahi when he discovered what had been done to him in interrogation.
After more than seven years of confinement Judge Robertson ruled that the government could not justify Salahi's detention. The ruling itself is still classified, but an unclassified version will be released in April. In the meantime preparations will have to be made for his release, since he cannot be brought to the United States.
"It's a good day not only for Mr. Salahi but also for the rule of law,” said Theresa Duncan, one of the attorneys representing Salahi.
-- A. Serwer
