Mohamedou Ould Slahi

Actually, I'm a very optimistic person.

My goal was solely to fight against the aggressors, mainly the communists, who forbid my brethren to practice their religion.

I felt bad for everybody I hurt with my false testimonies.

How can I render uninterrupted interrogation that has been lasting the last 7 years? That's like asking Charlie Sheen how many women he dated.

I started to hallucinate and hear voices as clear as crystal. I heard my family in a casual familial conversation I heard Koran readings in a heavenly voice. I heard music from my country. Later on the guards used these hallucinations and started talking with funny voices through the plumbing, encouraging me to hurt the guard and plot an escape.

There is nothing an interrogator could say to me that would be new; I've heard every variation.

People from cold regions might not understand the extent of the pain when ice cubes get stuck on your body.

Human beings make use of torture when they get chaotic and confused. And Americans certainly got chaotic, vengeful and confused after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

I don't want to be treated outside the rule of law. And I don't want people from this part of the world, specifically North Africa and the Middle East, to be seen as underhumans, as people who are not deserving of human rights and being subjected to the rule of law, what I call open season. I don't want that anymore.

So, I'm a big believer in democracy and human rights.

I have never felt as violated in myself as I had since the DoD team started to torture me to get me admit to things I haven't done.

Humiliation, sexual harassment, fear and starvation was the order of the day until around 10 P. M. Interrogators made sure that I had no clue about the time, but nobody is perfect; their watches always revealed it.

They dedicated the whole time until around Nov. 10, 2003 to questioning me about Canada and Sept. 11; they didn't ask me a single question about Germany, where I really had the center of gravity of my life.

I often compared myself with a slave. Slaves were taken forcibly from Africa, and so was I. Slaves were sold a couple of times on their way to their final destination, and so was I. Slaves suddenly were assigned to somebody they didn't choose, and so was I.

I have only written what I experienced, what I saw, what I learned first-hand.

When I came to Afghanistan, I couldn't choose the training camp; al Qaeda and the Arabs ran the camps. I said, 'Hey, I want to help.' They said I could not until I had training. I said, 'OK, I'll take the training.'

No matter how bad you make the torture scenes, the reality was much worse. Because you cannot put on screen 70 days and nights with no sleep. And this is the easiest part of the torture.

But when you embrace your weakness, that's when you become strong.

Writing is like driving a car. Writing the beats of a screenplay? It's like driving a rover on Mars. You have to be absolutely, extremely precise.

I'm not looking to get even with anyone in my life.

I would like to believe the majority of Americans want to see justice done, and they are not interested in financing the detention of innocent people.

When the guards noticed my chessboard, they all wanted to play me. And when they started to play me, they always won. The strongest among the guards taught me how to control the center. After that, the guards had no chance to defeat me.

In the beginning, the U.S. government was happy with its secret operations, since it thought it had managed to gather all the evils of the world in GTMO, and had circumvented U.S. law and international treaties so that it could perform its revenge. But then it realised, after a lot of painful work, that it had gathered a bunch of non-combatants.

I believe the U.S. government owes it to the American people to tell them the truth about what is happening in Guantanamo.

My 70 days of torture began in Camp India. The camps in Gitmo are named by letters. A is for Alpha, B for Beta, C for Charlie and so on. I is for India. It is a torture block.

I'm afraid to apply for a visa to the U.S.A. because it's against terrorism in a very undemocratic way.

Gitmo is everywhere in the world. We need to raise awareness of illegal prisons in Middle East, Asia, and Africa. This needs to be brought to the attention of the U.N. This needs to stop.

I'm sure if there is a debate, Guantanamo Bay must be closed. And it should be closed, because it does not belong in a democracy.

Everything a detainee says is classified. Detainees cannot talk to you. They cannot talk to anyone. They cannot challenge, in a meaningful way, their detention. All that is left is for people who survived Guantanamo Bay to speak for people who are left behind, and speak for those who are in so many Guantanamos, plural, in my part of the world.

Everyone who tortured me and kidnapped me, who imprisoned me, I have forgiven everyone. And I wish them, from the bottom of my heart, the best of lives.

People with hatred have always something to get off their chests, but I wasn't ready to be that drain.

It is the taste of helplessness when you see your beloved fading away like a dream and you cannot help him.

Many nights I wake up not able to breathe. I think I'm in Guantanamo Bay. I'm crying and shouting and making it very hard for the people that are with me in the room to sleep.

I told the people before they tortured me, please, don't torture me. I didn't do anything. They say, we have to torture you very much. Then when they tortured me, I told them everything they want to hear. I signed confession. That said, the ball was in their court. You know, I very much surrender to my lot.

The U.S. bet its last penny on violence as the magic solution for every problem, and so the country is losing friends every day and doesn't seem to give a damn about it.

In a matter of weeks I developed gray hair on the lower half of the sides of my head. In my culture, people refer to this phenomenon as the extreme result of depression.

And when 9/11 came, that was open season to violate human rights. And that's how I was kidnapped.

I first came into the radar of the U.S. intelligence when I received a call from my cousin Mahfouz. It was 1999. He wanted me to help him transfer some money to his sick father. And he called me from the phone of UBL.

English accepts more curses than any other language, and I soon learned to curse with the commoners.

Bad people always want to blend into a crowd.

I believed excessively in Conspiracy Theories - though maybe not as much as the U.S. government does.

I don't have a problem with black people - half my country is black people!

I feel grateful and indebted to the people who have stood by me.

I have come to learn that goodness is transnational, transcultural, and trans-ethnic.

Detainees were not allowed to talk to each other, but we enjoyed looking at each other. The punishment for talking was hanging the detainee by his hands with the feet barely touching the ground.

I trusted the American justice system too much, and shared that trust with people from European countries. We all have an idea about how the democratic system works.

I got used to interrogators asking me the same things. Before the interrogator even moves his lips I knew his questions, and as soon as he or she started to talk I turned my 'tape' on.

One of the hardest things to do is to tell an untruthful story and maintain it, and that is exactly where I was stuck.

But the problem is that you cannot just admit to something you haven't done; you need to deliver the details, which you can't when you haven't done anything. It's not just, Yes, I did!' No, it doesn't work that way: you have to make up a complete story that makes sense to the dumbest dummies.

If you don't know somebody, you just don't know him, and there is no changing it.