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Mohamedou Ould Slahi

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Mohamedou Ould Slahi (Arabic: محمد ولد صلاحي, transliterated Muhammad walad Salahi, also used the alias أبو مصعب, transliterated Abu Musab) (c.1972 - present) is a Mauritanian national formerly suspected of involvement in one of the 2000 millennium attack plots.

Slahi was born in Mauritania, but moved to Germany in the late 1980s. He was well-known to investigators as an al-Qaida operative. In late 1999, Slahi was operating under the pseudonym "Abu Musab", unbeknownst to German or American intelligence.

Separately, members of the terrorist Hamburg cell were planning to go to Chechnya to defend Muslims against Russian forces. They met a stranger on a bus named Khalid al-Masri, who advised them to talk to a man named Abu Musab (actually Slahi) in Duisburg Germany. Slahi advised them that it was difficult to get to Chechnya, and many muslims were being turned away by the authorities. He therefore advised them to train in Afghanistan, and he gave them useful information in how to get there. In Afghanistan, these same travellers would become the core organizers of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Afterwards, Slahi moved to Montreal, Canada and was granted permanent resident status despite security officials' concerns. He lived in a mosque as an imam. After the 2000 millennium attack plots failed, investigators began to suspect Slahi's involvement. The would-be suicide-attacker Ahmed Ressam had lived in the same mosque. Slahi moved suddenly to Mauritania, leading investigators to conclude he was fleeing; Slahi claims he went to visit his sick mother.

In Mauritania, Slahi repeatedly turned himself in to authorities when asked to do so, but was twice released. Finally he was arrested and turned over to American forces, who placed him in Camp X-ray in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He received some notice later when he went on a hunger strike to protest the fact that a severe rash he had developed was not being treated. He finally received medical treatment after he became ill from exhaustion. On December 14, 2005 it was confirmed that officials of the German foreign and domestic intelligence agencies (Bundesnachrichtendienst and Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz) had participated in the interrogation of Slahi at least once during a stay at the Guantanamo Bay camps between September 21 and September 27, 2002.

In March, 2006, The U.S. Department of Defence was force to released transcripts of detainee hearings, because of a freedom of information request by the Associated Press.

As reportered in a March 7 Globe and Mail article, Mr. Slahi told his captors that while he had links to al-Qaeda, he had never taken part in any terrorist plots.

He said he trained in Afghanistan in 1992, but only to fight against Communists. "I was knowledgeable I was fighting with al-Qaeda, but [back] then al-Qaeda didn't wage jihad [holy war] against America," he told the tribunal.

Mr. Slahi describes leaving Afghanistan and moving to Germany to study electrical engineering.

In 1998 he moved to Canada. "I wanted to immigrate there because of unemployment in Germany," he told a Guantanamo Bay hearing, adding that "at least I could come to Canada and start a new life."

He says he got to know some of the men that Mr. Ressam knew in Montreal, but was not otherwise involved with the "very bad friends" who took part in the plot.

Regardless, he said the Canadian Security Intelligence Service put followed him everywhere, prompting him to travel back to Africa.

f being under a microscope. "I said, 'Hey, man, you can keep your country for yourself,' so I went back to my country."

Mr. Slahi said he turned himself in to Mauritanian authorities in 2001, but was "kidnapped" and sent to Jordan for eight months before being sent to Guantanamo Bay.

"Your government captured me for the wrong reasons; they thought I was part of this millennium plot," Mr. Slahi told the Guantanamo Bay tribunal. ". . . Because there was so much pressure and bad treatment, I admitted to this."




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