Guantánamo Diary (50 page)

*
The interrogator who posed as “Captain Collins” and led MOS’s Special Projects Team has been identified by name in court documents filed in MOS’s habeas corpus appeal, in footnotes to the Senate Armed Services Committee report, and in other published sources as Lt. Richard Zuley. In
The Terror Courts
, Jess Bravin describes Zuley as a Chicago police officer and navy reservist. SASC, 135, 136; Bravin,
The Terror Courts
, 100, 105; Brief for Appellee, 23.

*
The time of day would make this the afternoon shift, and the redacted pronouns and later context suggest this is the team’s female interrogator.

*
It will become clear, and explicit, that this is Mr. X.

*
It could be that MOS’s escorts are pulling or manipulating his shackles to cause pain.

†
The Senate Armed Services Committee found that the military’s “Special Interrogation Plan” for MOS included a staged scene in which “military in full riot gear take him from his cell, place him on a watercraft, and drive him around to make him think he had been taken off the island.” Afterward, the committee reported, “Slahi would be taken to Camp Echo,” where his cell and interrogation room—self-contained in a single trailer-like isolation hut—had been “modified in such a way as to reduce as much outside stimuli as possible.” The plan directed that “the doors will be sealed to a point that allows no light to enter the room. The walls may be covered with white paint or paper to further eliminate objects the detainee may concentrate on. The room will contain an eyebolt in the floor and speakers for sound.” The SASC also recorded that an August 21, 2003, e-mail from a JTF-GTMO intelligence specialist to Lt. Richard Zuley reported on the final preparations to the Camp Echo hut: “The email described sealing Slahi’s cell at Camp Echo to ‘prevent light from shining’ in and covering the entire exterior of his cell with [a] tarp to ‘prevent him from making visual contact with guards.’ ”

According to the DOJ Inspector General, the original Special Interrogation Plan that General Miller signed on July 1, 2003, “stated that Slahi would be hooded and flown around Guantanamo Bay for one or two hours in a helicopter to persuade him that he had been moved out of GTMO to a location where ‘the rules have changed.’ ” However, the IG reported, military interrogators told investigators that in the end “they did not use a helicopter because General Miller decided that it was too difficult logistically to pull off, and that too many people on the base would have to know about it to get this done.” Instead, “on August 25, 2003, Slahi was removed from his cell in Camp Delta, fitted with blackout goggles, and taken on a disorienting boat ride during which he was permitted to hear pre-planned deceptive conversations among other passengers.” SASC, 137–38, 140; DOJ IG 122–123, 127.

*
Mr. X appears here unredacted in the original.

†
Based on court filings in MOS’s habeas corpus appeal, this is likely to be Richard Zuley (“Captain Collins”), MOS’s Special Projects Team chief. Brief for Appellee, 25.

*
MOS may be referring here to detainees who were captured along with Ramzi bin al-Shibh on September 11, 2002, and also held for a time in CIA custody before being transferred to Guantánamo. See footnote
here
.

*
MOS’s habeas appeal brief refers to medical records from what could be this exam, describing a corpsman “who treated his injuries while cursing him” and citing “medical records confirming the trauma to Salahi’s chest and face, as ‘1) Fracture ?? 7–8 ribs, 2) Edema of the lower lip.’ ” Brief for Appellee, 26.

*
Defense Department publicity materials for Guantánamo indeed emphasize protections for religious expression in Guantánamo; see, e.g., “Ten Facts about Guantanamo,” which states, “The Muslim call to prayer sounds five times a day. Arrows point detainees toward the holy city of Mecca.” See http://www.defense.gov/home/dodupdate/For-the-record/documents/20060914.html. Here MOS seems to be contrasting the situation as he experienced it when he was held in Camp Delta with the situation in his Camp Echo cell.

*
MOS’s habeas appeal brief describes what could be the same scene: “After Salahi had been in isolation for a few days, Zuley told him he had to ‘stop denying’ the government’s accusations. While Zuley was talking, the [redacted] man was behind the tarp, cursing and shouting for Zuley to let him in.” Brief for Appellee, 26–27.

*
The tone of this interrogation session suggests the lead interrogator may be the same “hateful” first sergeant whom MOS identified in his 2005 ARB hearing as a member of the Special Projects Team. The second interrogator in this scene appears to be the female interrogator who assisted in the earlier sexual assault.

†
Threatening prisoners with the specter of abusive interrogations by Israeli or Egyptian agents apparently was commonplace. In 2010 a former Guantánamo military interrogator named Damien Corsetti testified at the military commissions trial of Omar Khadr that during his time at the Bagram air base, interrogations included threats of sending detainees to Israel and Egypt. See http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/omarkhadr/2010/05/05/interrogator_nicknamed_the_monster_remembers_omar_khadr_as_a_child.html.

*
The reference here might be to the Mauritanian government and its close cooperation with the U.S. government, and to MOS’s own arrest in Mauritania at the behest of the United States.

*
This is corroborated chillingly in government documents. According to the Senate Armed Services Committee, on October 17, 2003, a JTF-GTMO interrogator sent an e-mail to a GTMO Behavioral Science Consultation Team (BSCT) psychologist that read, “Slahi told me he is ‘hearing voices’ now.… He is worried as he knows this is not normal.… By the way… is this something that happens to people who have little external stimulus such as daylight, human interaction, etc???? seems a little creepy.” The psychologist responded, “Sensory deprivation can cause hallucinations, usually visual rather than auditory, but you never know.… In the dark you create things out of what little you have.” SASC, 140–41.

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The Schmidt-Furlow report places the date of this session as September 8, 2003, noting that interrogation records show that on that date “the subject of the second special interrogation wanted to see ‘Captain Collins’ ” and that the interrogation team “understood that detainee had made an important decision and that the interrogator was anxious to hear what Detainee had to say.” It appears that another member of the Special Projects Team continued to lead the interrogation instead. Schmidt-Furlow, 25.

*
The reference here might be to Robert Hanssen, an FBI agent who spied for Soviet and then Russian intelligence services from 1979 until his arrest and conviction in 2001.

†
This may refer to Ahmed Ressam and his cooperation with U.S. authorities. See footnote
here
.

*
The redacted pronouns and the descriptions “the person closest to me” and “the only one I could relate to” suggest that this may be the female member of the Special Projects Team who previously led the second-shift interrogations. See footnote
here
.

*
“Ahmed L.” appears in the manuscript unredacted. This could refer to Ahmed Laabidi, a Tunisian national who lived in Montreal in 2000 and was later detained in the United States on an immigration violation. Laabidi was held in U.S. immigration custody and then deported to Tunisia in September 2003. See footnote
here
for more on Laabidi.

†
Bob Barker Company, Incorporated, which identifies itself as “America’s Leading Detention Supplier,” is a major supplier of prison uniforms for the U.S. Department of Defense. See http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1454&dat=20020112&id=6gJPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Ux8EAAAAIBAJ&pg=5765,3098702.

*
MOS may be referring to the distance between the isolation cell where he is being held and the main detention blocks of Camp Delta, where he was held previously.

*
“Her” appears here unredacted.

*
“Hannachi” might refer to Raouf Hannachi, a Tunisian-born Canadian citizen who also lived in Montreal in 2000. It appears from MOS’s 2008 Detainee Assessment and from MOS’s habeas corpus decision that confessions like those MOS is describing here became part of the government’s allegations against him. Both Hannachi and Ahmed Laabidi appear in both the 2008 Detainee Assessment and Judge James Robertson’s 2010 habeas memorandum order; in both the government portrays MOS, Hannachi, and Laabidi as members of a Montreal cell of al-Qaeda, with Hannachi as the cell’s leader and Laabidi as the cell’s financier. A footnote to Judge Robertson’s opinion specifically notes that MOS’s statement under interrogation that “Laabidi [is] a terrorist who supported use of suicide bombers” came in an interrogation session dated September 16, 2003—right around the time of the scene MOS describes here. The 2008 Detainee Assessment is available at http://projects.nytimes.com/guantanamo/detainees/760-mohamedou-ould-slahi. Detainee Assessment, 10; Memorandum Order, 26–28.

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MOS indicates later in the manuscript that he remained in the same cell he was delivered into at the end of his staged abduction through the time of the manuscript’s creation. There are no indications that he has been moved since. A 2010
Washington Post
report described a “little fenced-in compound at the military prison” that matches the description of his living situation at the time the manuscript was written. See Peter Finn, “For Two Detainees Who Told What They Knew, Guantanamo Becomes a Gilded Cage,”
Washington Post
, March 24, 2010, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/24/AR2010032403135.html. MOS manuscript, 233.

*
Context, including the unredacted word “poly” a bit farther into this passage, suggests that the subject of this conversation and the long redaction that follows could be the polygraph exam MOS describes toward the end of his ARB testimony. After recounting the boat trip and its aftermath, MOS stated, “Because they said to me either I am going to talk or they will continue to do this, I said I am going to tell them everything they wanted.… I told them I was on my own trying to do things and they said write it down and I wrote it and I signed it. I brought a lot of people, innocent people with me because I got to make a story that makes sense. They thought my story was wrong so they put me on [a] polygraph.” ARB transcript, 27.

*
“Poly” appears here unredacted.

*
In
The Terror Courts
, Jess Bravin published details of a polygraph examination of MOS that he dates to October 31, 2004. Bravin reported that MOS answered “No” to five questions about whether he knew about or participated in the Millennium and 9/11 plots, and whether he was concealing any information about other al-Qaeda members or plots. The results, according to Bravin, were either “No Deception Indicated” or “No Opinion”—results that Lt. Col. Stuart Couch, the Military Commissions prosecutor assigned to MOS’s case, considered potentially exculpatory information that would need to be shared with defense attorneys if MOS was ever charged and prosecuted. Bravin,
The Terror Courts
, 110–11.

*
The redacted pronouns and tone of this conversation suggest that the lead interrogator might be the female member from the special interrogation team. In this scene she seems to be introducing a new interrogator who will be working with MOS as well; redactions hint that this interrogator, too, might be female.

*
Context suggests that the redactions in this sentence may be “or she.” If so, this would be a particularly absurd example of the effort to conceal the fact that the U.S. deployed female interrogators.

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MOS adds a note here in the margin of the handwritten original: “Phase four: getting used to the prison, and being afraid of the outside world.”

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The description suggests the book might be Edward Rutherfurd’s historical novel
The Forest
, which was published in 2000.

*
In this section, which MOS headed “Guards,” he introduces several characters. Everything from the opening of the section to this multiline redaction appears to refer to guard number one, clearly a leader on the guard team. Redactions make it difficult to distinguish among the several guards that follow, though this redaction likely marks the introduction of guard number two, whose tour apparently ended before the Special Projects Team interrogators permitted MOS’s guards to remove their masks in his presence.

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This redaction may introduce the third guard that MOS is profiling.

*
This redaction appears to introduce the fourth guard that MOS profiles in this section.

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The passage from here to the section break seems to refer to a fifth guard.

*
This would likely be March 2004—more than seven months after MOS was dragged into the isolation cell in Camp Echo. The paragraph may refer to “Captain Collins,” who appears from later passages to have remained in control of Slahi’s interrogation until he was transferred to Iraq in the summer of 2004, and the new female interrogator. See footnote
here
.