Ex-Guantanamo Detainee Sues Canada over 14-Year Imprisonment
The former Guantanamo detainee Mohamedou Ould Slahi, 51, who spent 14 years without trial, is suing Canada over providing false information to the US which led to his arrest and subsequent torture at the infamous US prison.
Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a Mauritanian who lived in Montreal for two months, launched a lawsuit saying that faulty intelligence provided by Canadian authorities contributed to his detention at the US offshore military prison, where he suffered fierce beatings, sleep deprivation and sexual assault.
“Slahi’s detention and maltreatment were prolonged because the receipt and use of forced confessions by Canadian authorities validated the continued torture and detention,” his lawyers said in the complaint.
Slahi is seeking 35 million Canadian dollars ($28m) for the damages he suffered during his 14-year imprisonment.
Slahi’s story was a best-selling book that was adapted for the screen. The film – The Mauritanian, starring Tahar Rahim and Jodie Foster – depicts the extreme conditions on the American base.
Arrested in 2001 in Mauritania, Slahi was then successively imprisoned in Jordan and Afghanistan, before arriving at Guantanamo in 2002, in what he called in his book a world tour of torture and humiliation. He was released in 2016.