Guantanamo Bay Canadian

Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a Mauritanian who lived briefly in Montreal, was haunted by a phone call asking for “tea and sugar,” which interrogators claimed was ...

“And if I didn’t do anything, they need to apologize to say this was a big mistake.” The “tea and sugar” call, he says, was cited repeatedly. In reaction to this sense of humiliation, Canadian authorities, including CSIS and the RCMP, began an aggressive investigation targeting the Muslim immigrant community in Montreal.” These visits are cited in Slahi’s legal claim as one of Canada’s actions that Slahi alleges condoned his torture at the hands of American interrogators. He says he’s “plagued by nightmares” and still has long-lasting effects from interrogations. From there, he was rendered to the U.S. base in Bagram, Afghanistan, and eventually to Guantanamo in August 2002, where he remained until his release in October 2016. Suspicion concerning his time in Afghanistan and links to al-Qaida followed him when three weeks after Slahi’s arrival in Montreal, Ressam was arrested. Slahi had previously lived in Germany, where he got an electrical engineering degree — becoming the first of his family of 14 to travel abroad for an education. Slahi’s personal story, like many of those who have been held at CIA detention centres and the offshore American prison since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, spans decades and continents. But while under surveillance here, Slahi made a phone call that would haunt him for years. He asked a friend for “tea and sugar.” Canadian authorities believed “tea and sugar” was coded language for explosives. Unable to get permanent residency in Germany, Slahi decided to move to Canada and arrived here on Nov. 26, 1999.