Mohamedou Ould Slahi

“I believed excessively in Conspiracy Theories - though maybe not as much as the U.S. government does.”

“Maybe I'm stupid, I don't know. I went to the police and said, 'Why do you want me?' They said, 'Please don't worry, it is just formalities.'”

“My goal was solely to fight against the aggressors, mainly the communists, who forbid my brethren to practice their religion.”

“Bad people always want to blend into a crowd.”

“When the guards noticed my chessboard, they all wanted to play me. And when they started to play me, they always won. The strongest among the guards taught me how to control the center. After that, the guards had no chance to defeat me.”

“They dedicated the whole time until around Nov. 10, 2003 to questioning me about Canada and Sept. 11; they didn't ask me a single question about Germany, where I really had the center of gravity of my life.”

“I felt bad for everybody I hurt with my false testimonies.”

“I'm threatened because of the amount of information I've provided to the United States.”

“I don't want to be treated outside the rule of law. And I don't want people from this part of the world, specifically North Africa and the Middle East, to be seen as underhumans, as people who are not deserving of human rights and being subjected to the rule of law, what I call open season. I don't want that anymore.”

“Humiliation, sexual harassment, fear and starvation was the order of the day until around 10 P. M. Interrogators made sure that I had no clue about the time, but nobody is perfect; their watches always revealed it.”

“How can I render uninterrupted interrogation that has been lasting the last 7 years? That's like asking Charlie Sheen how many women he dated.”

“I hated the compound, I hated the dark, dirty room, I hated the filthy bathroom, and I hated everything about it, especially the constant state of terror and fear.”

“Everything a detainee says is classified. Detainees cannot talk to you. They cannot talk to anyone. They cannot challenge, in a meaningful way, their detention. All that is left is for people who survived Guantanamo Bay to speak for people who are left behind, and speak for those who are in so many Guantanamos, plural, in my part of the world.”

“If you don't know somebody, you just don't know him, and there is no changing it.”

“I trusted the American justice system too much, and shared that trust with people from European countries. We all have an idea about how the democratic system works.”

“I have never felt as violated in myself as I had since the DoD team started to torture me to get me admit to things I haven't done.”

“I'm not a convicted felon.”

“Many people take daylight for granted, but if you are forbidden to see it, you will appreciate it.”

“Human beings make use of torture when they get chaotic and confused. And Americans certainly got chaotic, vengeful and confused after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.”

“There is nothing an interrogator could say to me that would be new; I've heard every variation.”