A former Islamist fighter who went to Afghanistan to battle the Soviets and later received caught up within the US Battle on Terror – spending 14 years within the Guantanamo jail because of this – spoke to RT as a part of the Unheard Voices mission.
Within the early Nineties, Mohamedou Ould Slahi had a romantic notion of pursuing a noble trigger, eager to threat his life for one thing larger than himself. He traveled from Germany to Afghanistan with plans to hitch the Mujahideen. On the time, the Afghan Islamists had been hailed as heroic freedom fighters, a ‘David’ who had defeated the ‘Goliath’ of the mighty Soviet Union and was on its technique to topple the communist authorities in Kabul.
“Saudi Arabia, the Gulf international locations, Germany, the place I lived, supported Afghanistan. We used to observe films. We used to observe information, documentaries about Afghanistan. And I made a decision to hitch the Mujahideen,” the previous fighter recalled as he spoke to RT in Mauritania.
In actuality, Afghanistan was engulfed in civil battle, with varied factions vying for sources and political energy. The coaching camp the place Slahi wound up was run by Al-Qaeda, based only a few years prior by Osama Bin Laden, a son of a rich Saudi household who himself had joined and helped finance the US-backed – and armed – Mujahideen. Slahi stated he had no concept he was pledging allegiance to a world terrorist group.
“I used to be very younger and I used to be very misinformed. This was a really large propaganda machine led by the US and its Western allies and Arab allies. They gave me a mistaken image,” he recalled.
I assumed it was an excellent trigger to free folks and to ascertain a free nation – I did not even know then what a free nation meant, to be trustworthy.
Slahi’s Afghan travels and a cellphone name from a cousin, an affiliate of Bin Laden, landed him firmly within the crosshairs of Western intelligence. He was investigated for potential terrorism connections when he lived in Canada, earlier than returning residence to Mauritania and, after 9/11, he was marked as an individual of curiosity, whose rights had been irrelevant to Washington’s drive for vengeance.
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Ultimately, Mauritanian authorities gave up Slahi to the US regardless of his cooperation. The Individuals flew him between a number of places beneath the CIA’s ‘extraordinary rendition’ program – which noticed terror suspects shipped off to international states for brutal interrogations – had him tortured and at last locked him up on the US army jail in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
“I did confess to crimes I did not do, due to torture,” he stated.
I used to be sleep-deprived; I used to be overwhelmed until they broke my rib; I used to be not given meals for very lengthy durations of time; I used to be sexually assaulted on a number of events.
Slahi spent 14 years in jail and not using a trial earlier than lastly being launched in 2016. His memoir, ‘Guantanamo Diary’ grew to become a world bestseller a 12 months earlier, when the US agreed to declassify it and permit its publication. A dramatization of this guide was launched earlier this 12 months.
He stated that whereas he used to consider the US is a rustic that respects the ‘rule of legislation,’ his expertise in American custody was a impolite awakening, noting that this had brought on him additional struggling.
I perceive the US is a democracy. However with regards to Muslims, folks of colour – after 9/11 they didn’t respect the rule of legislation. It acted like a fascist regime.
RT interviewed Slahi in Mauritania, the place he returned after regaining his freedom. He says he can not journey internationally, as a result of, as he believes, the US has pressured the African nation to disclaim him a passport.
Slahi retold his story as a part of a mini-documentary sequence ‘Unheard Voices,’ produced by RT in commemoration of the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 terrorist assaults, and the many individuals victimized as a direct consequence of the Battle on Terror that adopted.
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