October, 17 2016, 02:30pm EDT

Mohamedou Slahi Released from Guantanamo After 14 Years Without Charge or Trial
‘Guantánamo Diary’ Author to Rejoin Family in Mauritania After U.S. Review Board Cleared Way for Release
WASHINGTON
The U.S. government has transferred Mohamedou Ould Slahi to his native Mauritania, where he is to be reunited with his family.
The release comes 14 years after he was first brought by the United States to the prison at Guantanamo Bay. A panel of U.S. national security, intelligence, and other officials cleared Slahi for release in July after determining that he poses no significant threat to the United States.
"I feel grateful and indebted to the people who have stood by me," Slahi said about his release. "I have come to learn that goodness is transnational, transcultural, and trans-ethnic. I'm thrilled to reunite with my family."
Slahi is the author of the best-selling memoir "Guantanamo Diary," which was released to critical acclaim in 2015. The memoir describes an odyssey that began in 2001 when, at the behest of the U.S. government, Mauritanian authorities detained Slahi after he voluntarily went in for questioning. The U.S. transferred him to prisons in Jordan and Afghanistan before Guantanamo, where he was tortured.
"We are thrilled that our client's nightmare is finally ending," said Nancy Hollander, one of Slahi's attorneys. "After all these years, he wants nothing more than to be with his family and rebuild his life. We're so grateful to everyone who helped make this day a reality."
With Slahi's release, 60 prisoners remain in Guantanamo, 19 of whom have been cleared for release.
"We are overjoyed for Mohamedou and his family, and his release brings the U.S. one man closer to ending the travesty that is Guantanamo," said Hina Shamsi, one of Slahi's attorneys and director of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Security Project. "Dozens of other men still remain trapped in Guantanamo. With time running out, President Obama must double down and not just close the prison, but end the unlawful practice of indefinite detention that it represents."
Slahi was cleared for release after a June 2 hearing by the Periodic Review Board, an executive branch panel that regularly reviews the continued detention of Guantanamo detainees. Among the evidence the PRB reviewed was a letter of support submitted by a former U.S. military guard at Guantanamo who was assigned to Slahi for 10 months.
A campaign to free Slahi, spearheaded by the ACLU, has gathered support in both the U.S. and abroad. More than 100,000 people signed petitions by the ACLU, Change.org, and MoveOn calling for his release. His plight gathered high-profile supporters, including Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, and Roger Waters. In the U.K., members of Parliament concerned with his case urged the British government to call on the U.S. to release Slahi.
Slahi was born in Mauritania in 1970 and won a scholarship to attend college in Germany. In the early 1990s, Slahi fought with al-Qaida when it was part of the Afghan anti-communist resistance supported by the U.S. The only federal judge to have reviewed all the evidence in his case noted that the group then was very different from the one that later came into existence.
Slahi worked in Germany for several years as an engineer and returned to Mauritania in 2000. The following year he was detained by Mauritanian authorities and rendered by the U.S. to a prison in Jordan. Later the U.S. rendered him again, first to Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan and finally, in August 2002, to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, where he was subjected to severe torture.
Slahi was one of two so-called "Special Projects" whose brutal treatment Rumsfeld personally approved. The abuse included beatings, extreme isolation, sleep deprivation, frigid rooms, shackling in stress positions, and threats against both Slahi and his mother. In Slahi's habeas challenge, a federal district court judge determined Slahi's detention was unlawful and ordered him released in 2010. The U.S. government successfully appealed that decision, and the habeas case is still pending.
Slahi's book, the first and only memoir by a still-imprisoned Guantanamo prisoner, was published in January 2015 -- with numerous redactions -- from a 466-page handwritten manuscript. It spent several weeks on the New York Times' best-seller list and has since been translated into multiple languages for publication in more than 25 countries.
Excerpts from Slahi's book, along with video and audio content, are here:
https://www.guantanamodiary.com
This statement is here:
https://www.aclu.org/news/mohamedou-slahi-released-guantanamo-after-14-years-without-charge-or-trial
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
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"It's not a question of whether climate change played a role—it's only a question of how much," said one expert.
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Many studies have confirmed that human-caused climate change is making the heaviest short-term rainfall events more intense, largely by warming the world's oceans and thus sending more water vapor into the atmosphere that can fuel heavy rain events. Sea surface temperatures this week have been as much as 1°F below the 1981-2010 average for early July in the western Gulf [of Mexico] and Caribbean, but up to 1°F above average in the central Gulf. Long-term human-caused warming made the latter up to 10 times more likely, according to the Climate Shift Index from Climate Central.
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It’s hard to make the Texas flood tragedy worse, except to know that on the same day Trump signed a bill to stop our efforts to defeat the climate change that is causing increased frequency of disastrous floods. And giving us more expensive electricity. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/05/c...
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— Governor Jay Inslee (@govjayinslee.bsky.social) July 5, 2025 at 9:29 AM
Instead of taking action to combat the planetary emergency, the Trump administration is ramping up fossil fuel production while waging war on clean energy and climate initiatives. The so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed into law by Trump on Friday slashes the tax credits for electric vehicles and other renewable technologies including wind and solar energy that were a cornerstone of the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act.
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Parfitt told Novara Media that members of Defend Our Juries were "testing the law."
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Members of the group Defend Our Juries publicly declare their opposition to Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza and their support for the proscribed group Palestine Action while Metropolitan Police officers look on before arresting them during a July 4, 2025 demonstration in London. (Photo: Kristian Buus/In Pictures via Getty Images)
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At midnight, Palestine Action will be proscribed under the Terrorism Act.Their real “crime”? Exposing the UK’s role in arming Israel’s genocide.This is a dark day for our democracy.Criminalising non-violent resistance won’t silence the truth.We are all Palestine Action 🇵🇸
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— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana.bsky.social) July 4, 2025 at 2:38 PM
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Yearning for a time when every new day isn't exponentially dumber than the day before.
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— Dave Vetter (@davidrvetter.bsky.social) July 4, 2025 at 2:57 AM
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