Mohamedou Ould Slahi (Arabic: محمدو ولد الصلاحي; born December 21, 1970) is a Mauritanian engineer who was detained at Guantánamo Bay detention camp without charge from 2002 until his release on October 17, 2016.

[citation needed] In 2010, Judge James Robertson granted a writ of habeas corpus, ordering Slahi to be released on March 22.

In 1988, he received a scholarship from the Carl Duisberg Society to study in West Germany, where he earned an electrical engineering degree from the University of Duisburg.

[19] The United States had supported the Mujahideen against the Soviet occupation starting in 1979, and funnelled billions of dollars of weapons and aid to the "freedom fighters".

[21] At the end of his training in March 1991, he swore bayat to al Qaeda and was given the kunya (nom de guerre) of "Abu Musab.

[22][24][27][28]: 12 The 9/11 Commission Report, based on the interrogations of Ramzi bin al-Shibh, stated that in 1999, Slahi advised three members of the Hamburg Cell to travel to Afghanistan to obtain training before waging jihad in Chechnya.

[31] Slahi moved to Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in November 1999 because German immigration authorities would not extend his visa for residence in Germany.

[27] The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) put Slahi under surveillance for several weeks but did not find any grounds to arrest him.

[33] Slahi left Canada on January 21, 2000, where he was arrested in Senegal at the request of United States authorities and questioned about the millennium plot.

[38] In February 2015, a series in The Guardian reported that one of his interrogators was Richard Zuley, a career homicide detective with the Chicago Police Department, who was called in on assignment with the United States Navy Reserve.

In Chicago, Zuley has been the subject of civil suits by inmates attributing similar abuse, including shackling, threats and coerced confessions.

It provides details of Slahi's harsh interrogations and torture,[17] including being "force-fed seawater, sexually molested, subjected to a mock execution and repeatedly beaten, kicked and smashed across the face, all spiced with threats that his mother will be brought to Guantánamo and gang-raped.

[51] The task force recommended that detainees deemed too dangerous to release, but without sufficient evidence for prosecution, receive a Periodic Review Board hearing.

[53] U.S. district court James Robertson had issued an order to the Department of Defense barring them from interrogating Slahi while his habeas corpus case was under consideration.

[16] Slahi wrote in an unclassified letter to his attorneys in April 2015 that officials had offered to return these items if he agreed to interrogations, which had been barred for six years.

[3][8] A 2007 Wall Street Journal report paraphrased an incident described in the 2005 Schmidt-Furlow Report, an investigation by the Department of Defense into detainee treatment at Guantanamo following FBI allegations of torture used by DOD interrogators in the early years of Guantanamo: On July 17, 2003, a masked interrogator told Mr. Slahi he had dreamed of watching detainees dig a grave....

"[8][55]In the summer of 2003, Slahi was repeatedly subjected to the use of an interrogation technique which the Schmidt-Furlow Report stated had been prohibited by the Secretary of Defense on December 2, 2002.

[58] Jack Goldsmith, head of the Office of Legal Counsel, withdrew the Yoo Torture Memos in June 2004 and advised federal agencies not to rely on them.

Today, they are housed in a little fenced-in compound at the military prison, where they live a life of relative privilege – gardening, writing and painting – separated from other detainees in a cocoon designed to reward and protect.

In response, the Department of Defense published 27 pages of unclassified documents from his Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) on July 14, 2005.

[61] The Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA) mandated that Guantánamo detainees were no longer entitled access to the U.S. federal courts, so all pending habeas petitions were stayed.

Before submitting briefs in the habeas case, the U.S. government dropped its previous allegations that Slahi had participated in the Millennium Plot and that he knew about the 9/11 attacks before they happened.

[7] After review of the case, U.S. District Court Judge James Robertson granted the writ of habeas corpus and ordered Slahi's release on March 22, 2010.

[63] Slahi was the 34th detainee whose release was ordered by a federal district court judge reviewing government materials associated with his habeas petition.

He said the law was not as clear in this instance: neither Al-Bihani nor any other case provides a bright-line test for determining who was and who was not "part of" al-Qaida at the time of capture.

[9]: 6 Judge Robertson discusses other factors in his decision, including which side had the burden of proof and considering the reliability of coerced or hearsay testimony.

[10] Oral arguments were heard on September 17, 2010, by a three-judge panel for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

[72] On January 29, 2021, the New York Review of Books published an open letter from Slahi, and six other individuals who were formerly held in Guantanamo, to newly inaugurated US President Biden, appealing to him to close the detention camp.

[73] In February 2021, a film adaption of his memoir titled The Mauritanian directed by Kevin Macdonald, and starring Jodie Foster, Tahar Rahim, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Shailene Woodley was released.

[75] After his academic graduation in Germany in 1999 Slahi had registered himself as unemployed while also being involved in commercial activities which he failed to declare to the authorities, resulting in a suspended sentence for social fraud and an unlimited entry ban.