Guantánamo Diary (16 page)

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woke me up and told me the story.

“
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, I heard the same voices in my room.” I said to him. “Let’s check!” Our short investigation was successful: we found a tiny twin hole in my room.

“What should we do?”
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asked.

“We call the police,” I said.

“Well, call them!”
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said. I purposely didn’t use our telephone; instead, I went out and used a public phone, dialing 911. Two cops showed up, and I explained to them that our neighbor, without our consent, drilled two holes in our
house, and we wanted him to be held for his illegal action toward us. Basically, we asked for a fair relief.

“Put some caulk inside the holes and the problem is solved,” said one of the cops.

“Really? I didn’t know that. Are you a carpenter?” I said. “Look! I didn’t call you to give me advice on how to fix my house. There’s an obvious crime behind this, trespassing and violation of our privacy. If you don’t take care of us, we’ll take care of ourselves. And by the way: I need you guys’ business cards,” I said. Each one silently produced a business card with the other cop’s name and contact on the back of it. Obviously, those cops were following some idiot directions in order to deceive us, but for the Canadian Intel it was too late. For days to come we were just sitting and making fun of the plan.

The irony was that I lived in Germany for twelve years and they never provided any incriminating information about me, which was accurate. I stayed less than two months in Canada, and yet the Americans claimed that the Canadians provided tons of information about me. The Canadians don’t even know me! But since all Intel work is based on what ifs, Mauritania and the U.S. started to interpret the information as they pleased, in order to confirm the theory that I was the mastermind of the Millennium Plot.

The interrogation didn’t seem to develop in my favor. I kept repeating my Afghanistan Jihad story of 1991 and early 1992, which didn’t seem to impress the Mauritanian interrogator. Mauritania doesn’t give a damn about a trip to Afghanistan; they understand it very well. If you try to make trouble inside the country, however, you’re going to be arrested, regardless of whether or not you’ve been in Afghanistan. On the other hand, to the American government a bare visit to Afghanistan, Bosnia, or Chechnya is worth watching you for the rest of your life and trying to lock you up. All the Arabic countries have the
same approach as Mauritania, except the communist ones. I even think the communist Arab countries are at least fairer than the U.S. government in this regard, because they forbid their citizens to go to Jihad in the first place. Meanwhile, the U.S. government prosecutes people based on an unwritten law.

My Mauritanian interrogator was interested in my activities in Canada, which are non-existent in the criminal sense, but nobody was willing to believe me. All my answers to the question, “Have you done this or that while in Canada?” were, “No, No, No, No.” And there we got completely stuck. I think I looked guilty because I didn’t tell my whole story about Afghanistan, and I figured I had to fill that gap in order to make my case stronger. The interrogator had brought film equipment with him that day. As soon as I saw it, I started to shake: I knew that I would be made to confess and that they were going to broadcast me on the National TV, just like in October 1994, when the Mauritanian government arrested Islamists, made them confess, and broadcast their confessions.
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I was so scared
my feet couldn’t carry my body. You could tell there was a lot of pressure on my government.

“I’ve been very patient with you, boy,” the interrogator said. “You got to admit, or I am going to pass you the special team.” I knew he meant the torture team. “Reports keep coming every day from everywhere,” he said. In the days before this talk I couldn’t sleep. Doors kept getting opened and closed. Every move around me hit my heart so bad. My room was next to the archive, and through a small hole I could see some of the files and their labels; I started to hallucinate and read papers about me that didn’t exist. I couldn’t take anything anymore. And torture? No way.

“Look, Director! I have not been completely truthful with you, and I would like to share my whole story.” I told him. “However, I don’t want you to share the Afghanistan story with the U.S. government, because they don’t understand this whole Jihad recipe, and I am not willing to put gas on the fire.”

“Of course I won’t,” the DSE said. Interrogators are used to lying to people; the interrogator’s whole job is about lying, outsmarting, and deception. “I can even send my recorder and my assistant away, if you’d like,” he continued.

“No, I don’t mind them around.” The DSE called his driver and sent him to buy some food. He brought chicken salad, which I liked. It was my first meal since I left Senegal; it was now February 12, 2000.

“Is that all you’re gonna eat?” wondered the DSE.

“Yes, I’m full.”

“You don’t really eat.”

“That’s the way I am.” I started to recount my whole Jihad story in the most boring detail. “And as to Canada or an attack against the U.S., I have nothing to do with it,” I finished. In the
days that followed I got, by far, better treatment and better food, and all the questions he asked me and all my answers were consistent in themselves and with the information he already knew from other sources. When the DSE knew that I was telling him the truth, he quit believing the U.S. reports to be the Gospel truth, and very much put them aside, if not in the garbage.

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showed up to interrogate me. There were three of them,
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. Evidently the Mauritanian authorities had shared all of my interviews with
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, so that
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and the Mauritanians were at the same level of information.
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When the team arrived they were hosted at
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gave me a forewarning the day they came to interrogate me.
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“Mohamedou, we have nothing on you. When it comes to us, you are a free man,” he told me. “However, those people want to interrogate you. I’d like you to be strong, and to be honest with them.”

“How can you allow foreigners to interrogate me?”

“It’s not my decision, but it’s just a formality,” he said. I was very afraid, because I had never met American interrogators, though I anticipated that they would not use torture to coerce information. But the whole environmental setup made me very skeptical toward the honesty and humanity of the U.S. interrogators. It was kind of like, “We ain’t gonna beat you ourselves, but you know where you are!” So I knew
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wanted to interrogate me under the pressure and threat of a non-democratic country.

The atmosphere was prepared. I was told what to wear and what to say. I never had the chance to take a shower or to wash my clothes, so I wore my some of my dirty clothes. I must have smelled terribly. I was so skinny from my confinement that my clothes didn’t fit; I looked like a teenager in baggy pants. But as much as I was pissed, I tried to look as comfortable, friendly, and normal as I could.

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arrived around 8 p.m., and the interrogation room was cleaned for them. I entered the room smiling. After diplomatic greetings and introductions I sat down on a hard chair, trying to discover my new world.

The
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started to talk. “We have come from the States to ask you some questions. You have the right to remain calm. You may also answer some questions and leave others. Were we in the U.S., we would have provided you with a lawyer free of charge.”

I almost interrupted his nonsense and said, ‘Cut the crap, and
ask me the questions!’ I was like, ‘What a civilized world!’ In the room, there were only the
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interrogators with an Arabic interpreter. The Mauritanian interrogators stepped outside.

“Oh, thank you very much. I don’t need any lawyer,” I said.

“However, we would like you to answer our questions.”

“Of course I will,” I said. They started to ask me about my trip to Afghanistan during the war against communism, showed me a bunch of pictures, asked me questions about Canada, and hardly any questions about Germany. As to the pictures and Canada, I was completely truthful, but I deliberately withheld some parts of my two Afghanistan trips in January 1991 and February 1992. You know why? Because it is none of the U.S government’s business what I had done to help my Afghani brothers against the communists. For Pete’s sake, the U.S. was supposedly on our side! When that war was done I resumed my regular life; I hadn’t broken any Mauritanian or German laws. I legally went to Afghanistan and came back. As for the U.S., I am not a U.S. citizen, nor have I been in the U.S.—so what law have I possibly broken? I understand that if I enter the U.S. and they arrest me for a reasonable suspicion, then I completely have to explain to them my position. And Canada? Well, they made a big deal out of me being in Canada, because some Arab guy had tried to attack them from Canada. I explained with definite evidence that I was not a part of it. Now F*ck off and leave me alone.

The
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interrogators told me that I wasn’t truthful.

“No, I was,” I lied. The good thing was that I didn’t give a damn about what they thought.
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kept writing my answers and looking at me at the same time. I wondered, how could he do both? But later I learned that
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interrogators
study your body language while you’re speaking, which is nothing but bullshit.
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There are many factors involved in an interrogation, and they differ from one culture to another. Since
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knows my entire case now, I suggest that
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should go back and check where he marked me as lying, just to check his competence. The U.S. interrogators also went outside their assignment and did what any interrogator would have done: they fished, asking me about Sudan, Nairobi, and Dar Es Salaam. How am I supposed to know about those countries, unless I have multiple doppelgängers?

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offered to have me work with them. I think the offer was futile unless they were dead sure that I was a criminal. I’m not a cop, but I understand how criminals can repent—but I personally had done nothing to repent for. The next day, about the same time,
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showed up once more, trying to get at least the same amount of information I had shared with the Mauritanians, but there was no persuading me. After all the Mauritanian authorities duly shared everything with them. The
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didn’t push me in any uncivilized way; they acted rather friendly. The chief of the team said, “We’re done. We’re going back home,” exactly like Umm ‘Amr and her donkey.
^†
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left Nouakchott, and I was released
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.
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“Those guys have no evidence whatsoever,” the DSE said sadly. He felt completely misused. The Mauritanians didn’t want me delivered to them in the first place, because it was a no-win situation: if they found me guilty and they delivered me to the U.S., they were going to feel the wrath of the public; if not, they would feel the wrath of the U.S. government. In either case, the President was going to lose his office.

So in the end, something like this must of happened under the table:

“We found nothing on him, and you guys didn’t provide us any evidence,” the Senegalese must have said. “Under these circumstances, we can’t hold him. But if you want him, take him.”

“No, we can’t take him, because we’ve got to get evidence on him first,” answered the U.S. government.

“Well, we don’t want to have anything to do with him,” said the Senegalese.

“Turn him over the Mauritanians,” the U.S. government suggested.

“No, we don’t want him, just take him!” cried the Mauritanian government.

“You got to,” said the U.S. government, giving the Mauritanians no choice. But the Mauritanian government always prefers keeping peace between the people and the government. They don’t want any trouble.

“You are free to go,” said the DSE.

“Should I give him everything?”

“Yes, everything,” the DSE answered. He even asked me to
double-check on my belongings, but I was so excited I didn’t check on anything. I felt as if the ghoul of fear had flown from my chest.

“Thank you very much,” I said. The DSE ordered his assistant and recorder to drive me home. It was about 2 p.m. when we took off toward my home.

“You’d better not talk with journalists,” said the inspector.

“No, I won’t.” And indeed, I never disclosed the scandal of foreign interrogators violating the sovereignty of my country to journalists. I felt so bad about lying to them.

“Come on, we have seen the
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God, those journalists are wizards.

“Maybe they were listening to my interrogation,” I said unconvincingly.

I tried to recognize the way to my home, but believe me, I didn’t recognize anything until the police car parked in front of our house and dropped me there. It had been almost seven years since I saw my family last.
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Everything had changed. Children had become men and women, young people had become older. My strong mom had become weak. Nonetheless everybody was happy. My sister
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and my former wife had hardly slept nights, praying to God to relieve my pains and sufferings. May God reward everybody who stood on my side.

Everybody was around, my aunt, the in-laws, friends. My family kept generously feeding the visitors, some of whom came just to congratulate me, some to interview me, some just to get
to know the man who had made news for the last month. After the first few days, my family and I were making plans for my future. To make a long story short, my family wanted me to stay in the country, if only to see me every day and enjoy my company. I said to myself, Screw it, went out, found a job, and was enjoying looking into the pretty face of my mom every morning. But no joy is forever.