The Mauritanian

by Mohamedou Ould Slahi

The DSE was waiting in front of his house, but he was not alone: his assistant stood beside him, which was not a good sign.

  “Salam Alaikum,” I said, stepping outside my car.

  “Waalaikum Assalam. You’re gonna ride with me, and somebody else is going to drive your car.”

  “Fine.” The Inspector and I rode with the DSE and headed toward the secret, well-known jail.

  “Look, those people told us to arrest you.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, but I hope you’ll be free soon. This whole 9/11 attack thing is screwing up everybody.” I didn’t say a thing. I just let him and his assistant make small talk, to which I paid no attention. The DSE had already called and interrogated me twice in the two and a half weeks since the 9/11 attack, but obviously the American government was not satisfied with a yard; they wanted a mile at first, and then the whole Autobahn, as it turned out in the end.

  They put me in the same room I had been in one and a half years ago. The Inspector went out to brief the guards, which gave me the opportunity to give a quick call to my cousin Ibrahim.

  “I’m arrested,” I whispered, and hung up without even waiting on his answer. Then I erased my whole phone book. Not that I had any hot numbers—all I had were some numbers of business partners in Mauritania and Germany—but I didn’t want the U.S. government harassing those peaceful people just because I had their numbers in my phone. The funniest record I deleted read “PC Laden,” which means computer store; the word for “store” in German just happens to be “Laden.” I knew no matter how hard I would have tried to explain that, the U.S. interrogators would not have believed me. For Pete’s sake, they always tried to pin things on me that I had nothing to do with!

  “Give me your cell phone,” the Inspector said when he returned. Among the belongings the Americans took back home with them later was that old, funny looking cell phone, but there were no numbers to check. As to my arrest, it was sort of like political drug-dealing: the FBI asked the U.S. president to intervene and have me arrested; in turn George W. Bush asked the vanishing Mauritanian president for a favor; on receiving the U.S. president’s request, his Mauritanian colleague moved his police forces to arrest me.

  “I really have no questions for you, because I know your case,” the DSE said. Both the DSE and his assistant left, leaving me with the guards and oodles of mosquitoes.

  After several days in the prison, the DSE came to my cell.

  “Look! Those people want to know about Mehdi and Ganczarski, and they said you were a part of Millennium Plot.”

  “Well, Mehdi and Ganczarski are my friends in Germany, and as to the Millennium Plot, I had nothing to do with it.”

  “I’ll give you a pen and paper, and you write whatever you know.”

  After two weeks of incarceration in the Mauritanian prison, two white U.S. interrogators, Mr. Lee and his German interpreter, Mr. Grant, came to the jail late one afternoon to interrogate me.4

  Before the two-man U.S. team met me, they asked the police to storm my house and office and confiscate anything that could give leads to my “criminal” activities. A special security team took me home, searched my house, and seized everything they thought might be relevant for the Americans. When the team arrived my wife was asleep, and they scared the hell out of her: she had never seen police searching somebody’s house. Neither had I, for that matter, but I had no problem with the search except that it bothered my family. My neighbors didn’t care much, first because they know me, and second because they know that the Mauritanian police are unjust. In a separate operation, another team searched the company where I worked. As it turned out, the Americans were not interested in any of the garbage except my work computer and the cellphone.

  When I entered the interrogation room, the two Americans were sitting on the leather sofa, looking extremely angry. They must have been FBI, because the stuff they confiscated ended up in FBI’s hands back in the States.

  “Hi,” I said, reaching out my hand. But both my hand and my “Hi” remained hanging in the air. Agent Lee seemed to be the leader. He pushed an old metal chair toward me.

  “Do you see the picture on the wall?” Agent Lee said, pointing at the President’s picture, with Agent Grant translating into German.

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “Your president promised our president that you are going to cooperate with us,” Agent Lee said. I thought, How cheap! I personally don’t give a damn about either president; to me both are unjust and evil.

  “Oh, yes! I surely will,” I said, reaching for a drink on a table filled with all kinds of drinks and sweets. Agent Lee jerked the drink out of my hand.

  “We are not here for a party,” he said. “Look, I am here to find the truth about you. I’m not here to detain you.”

  “OK! You ask and I’ll answer.”

  In the midst of this discourse, the tea guy surged into the room, trying to accommodate his angry guests. “Fuck off!” said Agent Lee. He was very disrespectful toward poor people, an idiot, and a racist who had one of the lowest self-esteems in the world. For my part, I ignored all the curses he addressed me with and just stayed cool, though very thirsty, because the session lasted the whole night.

  “Before 9/11 you called your younger brother in Germany and told him, ‘Concentrate on your school.’ What did you mean with this code?”

  “I didn’t use any code. I always advise my brother to concentrate on his school.”

  “Why did you call a satellite company in the U.S.?”

  “Because we have our Internet connection from the U.S., and I needed support.”

  “Why did you call this hotel in Germany?”

  “My boss asked me to make a reservation for one of his cousins.”

  “How many computers do you have?”

  “Only my work computer.”

  “You’re lying! You have a laptop.”

  “That’s my ex-wife’s.”

  “Where is your ex-wife living?”

  “The DSE knows.”

  “OK, let’s check this lie out.” Agent Lee disappeared for several minutes, asking the DSE to search my ex-wife’s house and seize the laptop.

  “What if you’re lying?”

  “I am not.”

  “But what if?”

  “I’m not.”

  Of course he threatened me with all kinds of painful torture should it turn out I was lying. “You know we have some black motherfuckers who have no mercy on terrorists like you,” he said, and as he proceeded, racial references kept flying out of his mouth. “I myself hate the Jews”—I didn’t comment—“but you guys come and hit our building with planes,” he continued.

  “That’s between you and the people who did it. You must resolve your problem with them; I have nothing to do with it.”

  Every once in a while Agent Lee received a call, obviously from a lady. During that time the other German-speaking idiot came up with the most stupid questions.

  “Check this out. This is a German newspaper writing about you guys,” he said. I scanned a newspaper article about the extremist presence in Germany.

  “Well, Mr. Grant, that’s none of my problem. As you can see, I’m in Mauritania.”

  “Where is Abu Hafs? Where is Noumane?” Agent Lee asked angrily.5

  “I am not in Afghanistan, I’m in Mauritania—in prison. How can I possibly know their whereabouts?”

  “You’re hiding him,” he said. I was going to say, “Check up my sleeves,” but I realized my situation didn’t allow it.

  “Ahmed Ressam said that he knew you!”

  “I don’t know Ahmed Ressam. There is nothing to change about that fact.” In the meantime, the DSE and his assistant came back with my ex-wife’s laptop. They weren’t allowed into the interrogation room; they knocked at the door and Agent Lee stepped outside. I looked with the side of my eyes and recognized the laptop bag. I was happy that they found the “big secret.”

  Agent Lee returned. “What if I tol
d you that they didn’t find the laptop,” he said, trying to be smarter than he is.

  “All I can tell you is that I have no laptop,” I said, letting him believe that I hadn’t seen the case. He didn’t ask anymore about the laptop after that. They mirrored all the hard disks and took them home, just to waste four years popping their eyes out of their heads looking for non-existent treasure. Tough luck!

  “We have invaded Afghanistan and are killing everybody. Do you think that’s OK?” Agent Lee asked.

  “You know best what you’re doing,” I said.

  “Do you know Hauoari?”6

  “No!”

  “The Canadians said that they saw him with you. Either I am lying to you or they lied to me—or you’re lying.”

  “I don’t know him, but in the mosque, and in the café beneath it, I was always around many people I don’t know.”

  “Why do you think we picked you up out of more than two million Mauritanians?”

  “I don’t know why. All I know is I haven’t done anything against you.”

  “Write your name in Arabic.” I wrote my name. For some reason, he kept taking pictures during the session. He really confused the hell out of me.

  “Why did you call the UAE?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “So you think I am lying to you?”

  “No, but I don’t remember calling the UAE.” As it turned out he did lie, but maybe unintentionally. I didn’t call the UAE, but I did receive a call from a female friend of mine, Dr. Eeman from Saudi Arabia, who tried desperately to bring me and my ex-wife back together. I couldn’t remember this during the session, I was so nervous. But when I was released, my family helped me remember, so I went to the police on my own and explained the call to them, and another call my cousin Ibrahim, who is a radiologist, made to France to contact his medicine supplier in Paris. In real life, if I give my phone to somebody I trust, I don’t ask him about the details of his call. But if you get arrested, you have to lay out your whole life, and something like “I don’t remember” doesn’t work.

  During the session, Agent Lee called my family and me all kind of names, and forbade me to drink from the goods that my people paid for—it was, after all, our taxes that made the U.S. guests comfortable. At the end of the session, when I was about to dehydrate, Agent Lee hit me in the face with 1.5-liter water bottle and left the room. I didn’t even feel the pain from a blow that almost broke my nose because of the relief of Agent Lee and his translator leaving. Agent Lee didn’t write anything, which struck me as strange because interrogators always want to write, but I believe that they recorded the session. Mr. Grant tried his best to repeat the curses that Agent Lee was generously producing. I think that Mr. Grant was worthless to Mr. Lee; he just brought him along as a translator.

  The Americans left Mauritania, and the next day, the Mauritanian government released me without any charges. Furthermore, the DSE went to the Media Center and informed them that I was innocent and acquitted of every charge. The DSE’s boss, the Directeur Général de la Sûreté Nationale,7 offered me a loan in case I had any problems getting back to my job, and at the same time, the DSE called the President and Director General of my company and assured him that I am innocent and must resume my work.8

  “We never doubted him for a second. He is welcome any time,” my former boss answered. Still, the government was ordered by the U.S. to keep me under house arrest with no reason besides injustice and the misuse of power. I wasn’t worried about getting a job after jail because I knew that Mauritanians were growing tired of Americans jumping on innocent people all around the world and trying to incriminate them. In fact, I got more job opportunities than I ever had in my life. My only worry was for my sister Nejah, who was suffering from depression and anxiety. My family of course was very happy to have me back, and so were my friends and relatives who kept coming to greet me and wish me good luck.

  But the camel, as they say, rests in two steps.

  Legend has it that an urban dweller rode a camel with a Bedouin. The Bedouin sat in front of the hump, and the urban dweller behind it so he could steady himself by grabbing the Bedouin. When they arrived home, the camel bent his front legs to come to rest, and the Bedouin, caught off guard, lost his equilibrium and fell to the ground. The urban dweller couldn’t help laughing at the Bedouin.

  The Bedouin looked at his friend and said, “Too soon to be happy: the camel rests in two steps.” And indeed, as soon as the camel bent his rear legs to come to his final rest, the urban dweller fell on his face.

  As far as I can remember, I never fell off a camel; however, as soon as I resumed my life, the U.S. government started conspiring with the Mauritanian government to kidnap me.

  It was around 4 p.m. when I got back from work about a month later. It had been a long day, hot, and humid: one of those days. The Islamic calendar read Ramadan 4th, and so far everybody in the family was fasting except for the kids.9

  It had been a remarkable workday. My company sent me to assess a relatively big project for our small company: we had been asked to give an estimate to network the Presidential Palace for both computers and telephones. I had made an appointment with the project coordinator for early that morning, and waiting outside his office was the order of the first half of the day. There are two things all government officials have in common: they don’t respect appointments, and they never start work on time.

  During Ramadan, most people party nights and sleep days. I hadn’t partied last night, but I had stayed up late for another reason: namely I had a little familial fight with my beloved wife. I hate fights, and so I was depressed and couldn’t sleep the whole night. As drowsy and sleepy as I was, I still managed to be on the site of my rendezvous, though not punctually, with time enough to beat the coordinator by hours. His office was closed, and there was no free chair in the corridor, and so I had to put up with squatting on the floor with my back to the wall. I fell asleep many times.

  Around noon my colleague and cousin Ould Khattary showed up and took me to the Presidential Palace. I thought there would be a lot of formalities, especially for a “terrorist suspect” such as myself, but nothing like that happened. You had to give your name the day before, and when I showed the guards my ID they verified the visitors’ list, where my name appeared with the appropriate clearance. I was shocked. But after all, only the Americans suspect me of terrorism, no other country. The irony is that I have never been in the States, and all the other countries I have been in kept saying, “The guy is alright.”

  As soon as I entered the sanctuary of the palace, I felt as if I were in another country. There was a garden inside with all kinds of flowers. Water fountains created a light drizzle. The weather was just cool and fine.

  We went right to business. I went through many rooms on different floors and took some measurements, but we were stopped and advised to leave the actual palace because there was an official visit. We could stay inside the compound, and so I used that time and went to the palace’s central telephone exchange to check on the infrastructure. The IT guy was the cousin of the president, and as friendly as most people from Atar. He was more of a security choice; the president trusts his own people most, which makes perfect sense. I felt depressed because the whole project needed much more work than what it said in the papers, and I needed help, professional help. I didn’t want to mess around with the Presidential Palace. I would rather retreat completely than start selling them made-in-Timbuktu hi-tech equipment.

  The IT guy showed us the things we needed to see and disappeared to his guests. It was late, and the project coordinator asked for another appointment to finish the measurement work and the assessment of the needed infrastructure. My cousin Ould Khattary and I left with the intention of coming back tomorrow and finishing the work. By the time we left the gate, I was already tired, and like, Get me the hell outta here. I made a call to my boss and briefed him, and I even went to the office after that and told my colleagues what happened.

/>   On the way home, my cousin Hussein Ould Ndjoubnane called me to make sure that I would be at dinner in his house. Hussein is a government employee who studied administration and joined our bureaucracy, working his way up to the position of a Prefect. He is also an old friend of the family; I knew him and played cards with him when I was a child. Today Hussein was organizing a big dinner for his friends, including my brother, who was on vacation with us from Germany, and me. Right when Hussein called, my car had a breakdown. I hated it when my As-Old-As-My-Grandpa car did that.

  “Do you need me to come to you?” Hussein asked.

  “No, I can see a garage not far from me. I’m sure they’ll help me.”

  “Don’t forget our Dinner Party, and remind Seyloum!” he said.10

  A mechanic from the garage found that the benzene pipe to the carburetor was broken, and fixed it. In Mauritania people fix everything; in Germany, people replace everything. The mechanic wanted me to pay him more than I thought he ought to be paid, and so I did the thing I hate the most, negotiation, and paid him the amount we agreed on. One thing I like about Germany is that you don’t need to negotiate; everything is labeled with a price. You could be mute and nonetheless be treated justly. The thing about negotiation is that most of the time somebody is going to be disadvantaged. Personally, I just want a fair price for both parties that makes each party happy.

  When I arrived at my mom’s home around 4 p.m., only my aunt Khadijettou, Nen as we call her, and my sister Nejah were there, and both were asleep. My mom had gone outside to gather her scattered sheep; it was feeding time. I went inside the house and put on my bathrobe. On my way to the shower, my mom and two secret police guys surged almost simultaneously into the house.

  “Salahi, the Director General wants to see you!”

  “Why?”

  “We don’t know,” said one of the guys.

  “OK. I’m going to take a shower and change my clothes.”

  “OK!” said the guy, stepping out. “We’re gonna wait on you outside.” The secret police respected me highly since I turned myself in a couple of weeks ago; they knew I am not a person who flees. I had basically been under house arrest since 2000 but I could have fled the country anytime; I didn’t, and didn’t have any reason to. I took my shower and changed. In the meantime my aunt woke up because of the noise. My sister didn’t wake up, as far as I remember, and that was good, because I was only worried about her and the extreme depression she had been suffering.