Mohamedou Ould Slahi
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.
External links
- Montrealer sold to U.S. troops Montreal Gazette reprint of Ottawa Citizen article about the other former Canadian resident, being held in Guantanamo Bay, that mentions Slahi, July 11, 2005
- Verhör in Guantánamo, n-tv, December 15, 2005