Mohamedou Ould Slahi

Mohamedou Ould Slahi or Salahi (Arabic: محمد ولد صلاحي‎) (December 31, 1970) is a Mauritanian who has been detained at Guantánamo Bay detention camp since August 4, 2002. He is being held under the authority of AUMF alleged by the US government to be "part of" al Qaeda at the time of his arrest but he won his habeas corpus case and Judge Robertson concluded that: "his association with al-Qaeda ended after 1992, even though he remained in contact thereafter with people he knew to be al-Qaeda members, he did nothing for al-Qaeda after that time." (p. 3)

Slahi traveled to Afghanistan in December 1990 “to support the mujahideen”. (p. 4) He trained in an al Qaeda camp and swore bayat to al Qaeda in March 1991. Slahi returned to Germany soon after and then traveled to Afghanistan again for three months in early 1992. Slahi alleges that he "severed all ties with ... al-Qaeda" at that time. The U.S. government maintains that Slahi "recruited for al-Qaeda and provided it with other support" since then. (p. 5)

Slahi was detained in Mauritania on November 20, 2001 and questioned for seven days by Mauritanian officers and by the FBI. Then the CIA rendered him to Jordan for eight months where he claims that he was tortured. After being flown to Afghanistan and held for two weeks, Slahi was transferred to the Guantánamo Bay detention camp in Cuba on August 4, 2002.

Slahi faces no criminal charges. Lt. Col Stuart Couch refused to prosecute Slahi in a Military Commission after concluding that in 2003, "Slahi's incriminating statements—the core of the government's case—had been taken through torture, rendering them inadmissible under U.S. and international law."

Slahi challenged the lawfulness of his detention and Judge James Robertson granted a writ of habeas corpus, ordering Slahi to be released on March 22, 2010. In his unclassified opinion, Judge Robertson wrote: "Associations alone are not enough, of course, to make detention lawful." (p. 29) The Department of Justice appealed the decision, which was heard on September 17, 2010. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the ruling and remanded the case to the District Court on November 5, 2010 for further factual findings. (p. 16)