When Mister X entered the interrogation room for the first time on July 8, 2003, he was wearing a blue overalls, a balaclava and mirrored sunglasses.

The man stooped across from him because he is chained to the ground is Mohamedou Ould Slahi, prisoner number 760 in Guantánamo Bay, the camp of the US naval base in Cuba.

It is the day that changes the lives of both forever.

According to the American government, Slahi is one of the most dangerous terrorists in the world and represents a threat. In the weeks and months that followed, Mister X was tortured to extract information from him.

But Slahi is silent.

David Lindenfeld

Volunteer.

  • Follow I follow

The Americans assume that Slahi is one of the people behind the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 and that he has information on al-Qaeda.

In 1990 Slahi trained in a terrorist group's camp in Afghanistan and swore an oath of allegiance to Osama bin Laden.

There are two versions of his story for the time after: that of the US from the al-Qaeda terrorist.

Slahi wants to go to Germany

And that of Slahi, who asserts that after his return to Germany in 1992, where he received a scholarship in 1990, he closed this chapter and cut all ties. But that's not entirely true: he was in contact with his cousin Abu Hafs al-Mauritani, a confidante of bin Laden's, and a few others. Because they were friends, Slahi said in an interview with the weekly newspaper Die Zeit, not because of Al-Qaeda. Nobody in the United States believed him back then.

After 14 years of imprisonment without charge, due process, and evidence, Americans released Slahi in 2016. A new phase of life begins in which the victim wants one thing: to find the people who have tortured, beaten and humiliated him. He tells John Goetz, an investigative journalist for Norddeutscher Rundfunk, about it. Together with colleagues from the time, he went in search of the “Special Project Team” that allegedly tortured them, and he found many. One of the team admits publicly for the first time that it was “torture”. Previously, members of the interrogation team only spoke internally.

The story will be broadcast with the documentary "Slahi und seine Tortterer" by John Goetz in different versions over the next few days. Slahi himself has a say, as does his torturers, whose methods became increasingly cruel. An analyst on the “Special Project Team” who questioned Slahi confirmed that the “special interrogation methods” in the Slahi case had been personally approved by then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Richard Zuley, as head of the “Special Project Team”, finally succeeded in getting Slahi to give in and - even under threat of violence against his mother - to provide information. However, after repeated polygraph tests, they turned out to be false. Because that's how it was in the Middle Ages: people confess everything under torture.

Goetz's documentary brings them together: one of the torturers, Mister X, who wants to remain anonymous, regrets and seems to break, but continues to regard Slahi as a terrorist and a “brilliant liar”. And Slahi, who forgave them and is in Mauritania. He does not receive an entry permit to Germany. There lives his wife, an American human rights attorney whom he met while imprisoned. He has a son with her who was born in 2019.

Slahi and his torturers

can be found on Arte.tv and in the ARD media library. On September 7th, the film will be shown on Arte at 9:50 p.m. A longer version is available on September 8th at 9:40 p.m. in the ARD media library and will run on September 14th at 10:50 p.m. on Das Erste. There is also the podcast “Slahi - 14 years of Guantánamo” and a contribution that will be broadcast on Thursday, September 2nd at 9.45 pm on ARD in Panorama magazine.