Mohamedou Ould Slahi has said that former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld should be charged with conspiracy to torture in light of the alleged ill-treatment he was subjected to at Guantanamo whilst he was a prisoner there. The abuse includes sexual abuse where he describes, to The Independent, how 3 female security guards raped him.
These claims are documented by by Mohamedou during his 12 years detention without charge in Guantanamo Bay, his lawyer has claimed.
The Independence reports:
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Mr Slahi’s Guantanamo Diary, published today, is the only account written by a detainee still held in the controversial American military prison on Cuba. The 44-year-old describes how he was told he would be taught about “great American sex” and then he was tortured and forced to have sexual intercourse with female interrogators.
He describes how he was subjected to brutal treatment, including being kept in a “frozen room” for hours on end, forced to drink salt water, and repeatedly beaten.
“I was literally living in terror,” he writes, adding that he was denied sleep for more than two months. “For the next 70 days I wouldn’t know the sweetness of sleeping: interrogation 24 hours a day, three and sometimes four shifts a day.”
His allegations of psychological and physical torture suffered come just weeks after a US Senate report revealed the widespread use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” by the CIA.
In an interview with The Independent, his lawyer Nancy Hollander said: “The convention against torture, of which the United States is a party, requires that countries prosecute those who have tortured – why hasn’t anyone been prosecuted? I’m talking about Secretary of State Rumsfeld – he’s the one who signed the orders to torture Mohamedou… he should be charged with conspiracy to commit torture.”
Mr Slahi’s legal team have spent years battling to get a redacted version of his diary, regarded as a ‘secret’ document by the US government, released. Described by John Le Carre as a “vision of hell, beyond Orwell, beyond Kafka,” the inside account of life at Guantanamo is prompting renewed calls for his release.
