By Adam Boulton, Sky News Editor At Large
A diary written by a Guantanamo Bay prisoner has been published, revealing the mistreatment inflicted on inmates at the high-security jail.
It is remarkable that Mohamedou Ould Slahi managed to write his memoirs at all – and even more remarkable that the world is getting to read of his experiences.
Everything written by "gitmo" inmates is impounded as an official secret by the US Government.
The litany of mistreatment and "torture" Mr Slahi experienced at the hands of American authorities is both shocking and appalling, as you can see from this extract.
Most remarkable of all is how Mr Slahi is still in prison in Guantanamo, illegally and without charge, after 13 years in US custody – 12 of them within the detention camp.
He was born in Mauritania, West Africa, 35 years ago. At the age of 18, he won a scholarship to study electrical engineering in Germany.
As a young man, he spent a year or so in Afghanistan with the mujahideen, who were allies of the US at the time, fighting against the Soviet invasion.
He pledged his allegiance to al Qaeda in 1991 but claims he cut all ties with the group when he left a year later. The US insisted he had acted as a recruiter and supporter for the organisation in the years since then.
In 1992, he returned to Germany – subsequently working there, in Canada, and Mauritania. Following 9/11, he turned himself in to the Mauritanian authorities at their request.
The US authorities subjected him to rendition in Jordan, then, after the Jordanians found no case to answer, to Bagram military base in Afghanistan.
In August 2002, he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay and has been held there since.
While there, he underwent torture by sleep deprivation, freezing, isolation and diet manipulation, as well as physical and psychological humiliation. These experiences are described in his diary, and have been subsequently verified in declassified documents released to US investigators.
The diary was written in 2005, and it has taken a decade of legal battles to bring it to publication now.
In 2007, the FBI, CIA and military intelligence conceded they could not link Mr Slahi to acts of terrorism.
And while a US District Court judge ordered his release in 2010, he is still imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay with no obvious prospect of freedom.
Before his election in 2008, President Barack Obama pledged to shut down the prison camp but has failed to do so. Around 200 inmates are still detained there.
Even with the blacked out lines redacted by the authorities, Guantanamo Diary is a vivid and moving personal testimony.
Mr Slahi is still bearing witness to what many regard as one of the most shameful and evil chapters of US history.
This true-life account is, as the writer John le Carré puts it in his endorsement of the book: "A vision of hell, beyond Orwell, beyond Kafka."
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