Ex-Guantanamo detainee sues Ottawa for $35 million

Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a Mauritanian national detained for 14 years and tortured for a long time in the American military prison, hopes that recourse to the courts will make it possible to “expose the truth” about the role of the Canadian authorities in his misfortunes, which inspired the Hollywood film The Mauritanian.

Marc Thibodeau
The Press

Mohamedou Ould Slahi says he is convinced that Canadian law enforcement played a central role in his abduction and his prolonged detention in the American prison of Guantánamo. He is claiming $35 million in compensation from the federal government for the damages suffered.

The lawsuit filed in Federal Court on April 22 by the Toronto law firm Goldblatt Partners alleges that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) “put the life and safety” of the Mauritanian national in danger . How ? By producing erroneous information about him, while living in Montreal with permanent resident status in the late 1990s.

The Canadian authorities, says the procedure obtained by The Press, fueled American suspicions of terrorism. This ultimately led to his being sent to Guantánamo military prison in 2002, from which he would not be released until 2016.

Canadian authorities then reportedly “tacitly condoned” the torture he suffered there by “receiving and using” information from worthless forced confessions, rather than calling for an end to his abuse.

“I want the truth to be known to all Canadians,” said the 51-year-old Mauritanian, who says he has no choice but to turn to the courts because of the lack of transparency from the federal authorities.

Amnesty International and the New Democratic Party (NDP) called last year for a public inquiry into Canada’s role in the Mauritanian national’s misadventures, in response to a series of articles by The Press on the subject.

The government rejected these requests, noting that there was no information making such a step “necessary”. The Ministry of Public Security had instead suggested to the Mauritanian national to address his grievances to the Office for the Surveillance of National Security Activities, an unknown body.

The team of lawyers representing Mohamedou Ould Slahi believes that a prosecution in federal court is a more interesting avenue, since it will make it possible to get their hands on many internal documents likely to clarify what happened.

Mr. Slahi moved to Montreal in November 1999 after obtaining permanent residency. His troubles with the authorities began after the arrest a few weeks later of Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian national who wanted to blow up the Los Angeles airport as part of the “Millennium Plot”.

The prosecution notes that the Mauritanian national attended the same mosque as the terrorist, but never met him, since the latter had already left for Western Canada when he arrived in the country.

Ressam’s arrest, the document relates, was a “source of humiliation” for the Canadian security forces, who reacted by launching an “aggressive investigation” targeting in particular several Muslims attending the Assuna-Annabawiyah mosque, including Mr. Slahi.

They would have become “obsessed” in the process with the idea that the Mauritanian had played a role in the plot of the Millennium. A “purely speculative” finding, which was based on “Islamophobia and stereotyping” rather than sound investigative practices, the suit notes.

The surveillance operations carried out against him generated transcripts of calls and emails as well as photos that were passed on “without proper caveats” to US authorities, the document reads.

An “innocent and benign” conversation, in which Mr Slahi asked someone to bring sugar in order to have tea, was notably presented by Canadian authorities as a form of “coded language appearing in a terrorist plot” . This same conversation would then have turned into an “obsession” and will be regularly mentioned by the American interrogators of the detainee at Guantánamo, according to his lawyers.

In interview at The Press Last year, a former FBI agent who had long investigated the Millennium plot, Fred Humphries, pointed out that the Canadian forces had “exaggerated the importance” of this interview with the Americans. He says he went himself to the military prison in 2003 to emphasize his belief that Mohamedou Ould Slahi had no connection with Ahmed Ressam and the planned attack in Los Angeles.

According to the prosecution, the testimony of Mr. Humphries and that of Mark Fallon, a former Guantánamo investigator, going in the same direction, shed light on the “secret role” of Canada in Mr. Slahi’s troubles.

The Canadian authorities, say the Mauritanian’s lawyers, aggravated their fault by “communicating with the interrogators from Canada, passing them information and traveling to Guantánamo to question him” when they knew he was “illegally detained and tortured”.

The prosecution notes that “false information” obtained in this context was found in particular in a briefing produced in 2005 for the senior management of the RCMP.

Mr. Slahi’s lawyers note that the behavior of the Canadian authorities contravenes several provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Civil Code of Quebec as well as the country’s international obligations in the fight against torture, which justifies the extent of the damages claimed.

Neither CSIS nor the RCMP or the Attorney General of Canada, who is officially targeted by the prosecution, reacted Friday to Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s initiative. The Ministry of Public Security limited itself to saying, on behalf of the government, that it would be “inappropriate” to comment on a case “currently being dealt with by the courts. »

Ward Elcock, a former director of CSIS who was in office when the Mauritanian was interrogated in Montreal, said he was convinced last year that the organization had nothing to reproach itself for in the affair.

He said that “Americans were already very concerned” about Mr. Slahi in 1999 and “needed no encouragement at all” from the Canadian authorities to convince themselves of his importance.

Mr. Slahi maintains that the responsibility of the Canadian authorities in his misfortunes is clear and justifies a proper apology and substantial compensation.

“I was looking for a better life [en venant à Montréal]. Canada did not protect me. On the contrary, Canada threw me under the bus,” he laments.

Compensation paid

The federal government has already paid several million dollars in financial compensation to four Canadian Muslims who were detained abroad and tortured in the period following the attacks of September 11, 2001, based in part on erroneous information provided to the authorities Americans by Canadian law enforcement. This was particularly the case for Maher Arar, a Canadian engineer of Syrian origin who had been kidnapped by the United States in 2002 and sent to Syria for interrogation. Ottawa issued an apology in 2007 and announced the payment of compensation of $10.5 million. Judge Dennis O’Connor, who headed a commission of inquiry into this subject, warned in his final report that the transmission of intelligence to allied countries was an “extremely delicate” exercise that should be avoided if there is a “risk credible” to make Canada complicit in torture in the process.

A long series of twists

Late 1980s

Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who was born in 1970 in Mauritania, moved to Germany to continue his engineering studies.

1992

Inspired by the fight of the mujahideen against the Russian forces, he interrupted his studies and went twice to Afghanistan, where he stayed in particular in an Al-Qaeda training camp. He leaves the country because he is disillusioned by the clashes between Islamists and breaks with the organization, which does not yet have the terrorist scope that we know today.

November 1999

After having experienced difficulties in renewing his visa in Germany, where the authorities were worried about calls received from a cousin who had become a close adviser to Osama bin Laden, he left the country to settle in Montreal.

December 1999

Three weeks after the arrival of Mohamedou Ould Slahi in Montreal, an Algerian national linked to Al-Qaeda, Ahmed Ressam, was arrested in the west of the country, while trying to cross the American border in a vehicle. loaded with explosives. He hoped to hit the Los Angeles airport as part of the so-called Millennium plot. Mohamedou Ould Slahi is suspected by Canadian authorities of being an accomplice of Ressam, who attended the same Montreal mosque. The two men never met on the spot, the Algerian having already left for the West when he arrived.

2000

Under pressure from law enforcement, Mohamedou Ould Slahi left Canada in January and was arrested in Senegal, where he was interrogated with the help of the FBI before being released. Mauritania also questions him on his return to the country and releases him. He claims in the lawsuit filed Friday that Canadian security forces harassed him to push him out of Montreal so he could be interrogated in a less observant third country on human rights issues.

2001

He was apprehended again following the attacks of September 11, 2001, which led to the arrest of many individuals considered terrorists by the United States. After being interrogated in Jordan and Afghanistan, he ended up in Guantánamo, where he was tortured for a long time.

2003

A special plan adopted by the Secretary of Defense at the time, Donald Rumsfeld, was implemented from March 2003 to the fall of 2004. It notably provided for long periods of isolation and deprivation of light, sexual humiliation and mock executions. To put an end to the torture, Mohamedou Ould Slahi ended up saying, at the suggestion of his interrogators, that he had invented a plan to attack the CN Tower in Toronto, when he did not know it and did not never visited the city.

2016

The American authorities believe that he is a high-ranking member of Al-Qaeda, but will never succeed in substantiating their suspicions. They waive any indictment. Six years after a judge in the United States concluded that there was no support for the authorities’ claims about his alleged role in the terrorist organization, a Guantánamo administrative court rules that his detention is no longer necessary for reasons of national security. He was sent back to Mauritania, where he was initially subject to travel restrictions requested by the American authorities.

2022

The ex-convict now lives and works in the Netherlands. His struggles inspired a film called The Mauritanianbased on a book he wrote while in custody.