Germany
Slahi moved from Mauritania to Germany in 1988 on a scholarship with the Carl Duisberg Society and earned an engineering degree from the University of Duisburg. In December 1990, Slahi went to Afghanistan to support the mujahideen against the communist central government. He trained for six weeks at al-Farouq, an al Qaeda-run training camp near Khost. At the end of his training in March 1991, he swore bayat to al Qaeda and was given the kunya "Abu Musab." He then returned to Germany to continue his studies. In January 1992, he again traveled to Afghanistan to fight in support the mujahideen. He was assigned to a mortar battery in Gardez. In March, the Mohammad Najibullah regime fell and Slahi returned to Germany. (p. 12) In hearings in Guantanamo, Slahi has stated that he did travel to Afghanistan twice, attended the al Farouq training camp in 1990 and fought against the Afghan central government in 1992, but that those actions do not make him an enemy combatant against the United States. (pp. 2–4) (pp. 4–6)
Slahi graduated from the university (renamed Gerhard Mercator University in 1994) with a degree in electrical engineering in 1995. He began seeking an unlimited visa and work permit to remain in Germany and as well as landed immigrant status in Canada during 1996. (p. 12) Slahi obtained landed immigrant status in Canada in September 1998.
Slahi's cousin and former brother-in-law is Mahfouz Ould al-Walid, also known as Abu Hafs al-Mauritania. Al-Walid is alleged to be one of the spiritual advisers to Osama bin Laden and a high-ranking leader of al Qaeda. (p. 21) While al-Walid was in the Sudan, he asked Slahi to help him get money to his family in Mauritania twice, about $4,000 in December 1997 and again $4,000 in December 1998. About this, the District Court stated: "the government relies on nothing but Salahi's uncorroborated, coerced statements to conclude that the money transfers were done on behalf of and in support of al-Qaida." (p. 26) In 1998, Slahi was heard by U.S. intelligence talking to al-Walid on a satellite phone traced to bin Laden. (p. 12)
The 9/11 Commission Report stated that in 1999, Slahi advised three members of the Hamburg Cell to travel to Afghanistan to obtain training before waging jihad in Chechnya. However, the habeas court found only that Slahi "provided lodging for three men for one night at his home in Germany, that one of them was Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and that there was discussion of jihad and Afghanistan." (p. 19)
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