The Mauritanian

Irish Freethinker and Humanist • May-June 2021 The Mauritanian Brian McClinton UANTANAMO Bay in death penalty for whoever South East Cuba was was responsible. Played by leased to the United Benedict Cumberbatch with a G States as a coaling and jarring southern twang, he naval station when Cuba be- resigns from the case when he came independent in 1902. A finally becomes aware that the hundred years later, despite confession was elicited by Cuban protests, the US still torture. But, despite the fact controls the area and in 2002 that Slahi was cleared by the it established a detention cen- court in 2011 on the grounds tre there as part of the ‘war on of insufficient evidence, an terror’ in the wake of the 9/11 appeal against the verdict by attacks. cousin left Al-Qaeda he twice the Obama administration meant arranged for Slahi to send money that he wasn’t finally released until Being classified as outside the terri- through to his family. This was used 2016. torial jurisdiction of the country, US as ‘evidence’ that Slahi was funding governments have argued that the Al-Qaeda activity, and US intelli- This is a story that should arouse normal legal rules don’t apply. So gence claimed to have heard him indignation and a desire for justice, suspects were detained indefinitely talking to his cousin on a phone but Kevin MacDonald, the Scottish without trial and tortured in breach owned by bin Laden. Hence his director, has a different ambition, of basic human rights. The justifica- incarceration in Guantanamo. namely to show that Slahi is able to tion of these violations of the Due show grace under duress and for- Process Clause of the Fifth and Slahi wrote a lengthy memoir while give his captors. He himself appears Fourteenth Amendments of the in captivity, but it took six years for at the end, back home in Mauritania, American Constitution is, of course, the government to declassify and laughing and singing along to the a nonsense. Obama promised that heavily redact it. Guantanamo Bob Dylan song The Man in Me. he would close the camp but he met Diary, finally released in 2015, be- with bipartisan opposition in Con- came an international best-seller, This is all very well, but it rather lets gress. However, the number de- and now has been adapted into the America off the hook. Guantanamo tained there has fallen from about film The Mauritanian, starring was a ripping up of the American 245 to 40. In 2018 Trump signed an Tahar Rahim, the Algerian-French Constitution and a crime against executive order to keep the camp actor who played the prisoner in A humanity. There is no questioning open indefinitely, but the Biden ad- Prophet, and Charles Sobhraj, the here of the system that produced ministration has announced its in- French serial killer, in the BBC this barbarity. Instead we are pre- tention to shut it down. miniseries The Serpent. sented with not one but two white American saviours: Hollander and Mohamedou Ould Slahi was picked Slahi was subjected to ‘special inter- Couch – except that they didn’t up in his home country of Maurita- rogation techniques’, including be- actually save him at all since Slahi nia, which borders Morocco and ing force fed during Ramadan, remained imprisoned for 11 years Algeria, shortly after 9/11 and even- head-butted, groped, threatened after Hollander took up the case. tually taken to Guantanamo where with rape, waterboarded, starved of That said, it was Hollander who he spent 14 years without charge on food, subjected to strobe lights and persuaded Slahi to write his memoir suspicion that he was one of the key taken out to sea blindfolded in a and its publication was the main recruiters for the attacks. mock execution. He was even reason he was released. threatened that, if he didn’t confess, In 1991 Slahi had become involved his mother would be brought to This is not to say that The Mauri- in the fight against communism in Guantanamo and raped. Inevitably, tanian is a bad film. It is good when Afghanistan, going into battle with he confessed: who wouldn’t? it centres on Slahi himself and there the mujahideen, on the same side as is no doubt that Tahar Rahim por- the United States, who financed In 2005 defence attorney Nancy trays the character superbly. It’s just billions of dollars of weapons and Hollander (excellently played by that, if Guantanamo was a crime, aid to ‘freedom fighters’ like Slahi. Jodie Foster) and her associate Teri where are the criminals? Unlike The Al-Qaeda were one of the jihadist Duncan (Shailene Woodley), took Dissident, there is no equivalent of groups involved in this activity and up his case despite protestations of an MBS. All the leading characters Slahi trained in their camps. His the people around them. Stuart are well meaning goodies. Yet cousin, although a spiritual adviser Couch, the military prosecutor, was Guantanamo existed and still exists. to Osama bin Laden, advised a friend of one of the pilots killed So, who is responsible? The Mauri- against the 9/11 attacks. When his on 9/11 and was keen to secure the tanian offers no answers. q 23.

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