00;00;00;21 - 00;00;35;16

Jonathan Hafetz

Hi, I'm Jonathan Hafetz and welcome to Long Film, a podcast that explores the rich connections between lore and film. Lore is critical to many films. Films, in turn, tell us a lot about the lore. In each episode, we'll examine a film that's noteworthy from a legal perspective. What legal issues does the film explore? What does it get right about the lore and what does it get wrong?

00;00;35;19 - 00;01;09;20

Jonathan Hafetz

And what does the film teach us about the lore and the larger social context in which the lore operates? Our film today is The Mauritanian, a 2021 film directed by Kevin MacDonald, based on the book Guantanamo Diary by Mohamedou. Old Slahi. The film tells the story of Mohamedou Slahi's nightmare odyssey of secret rendition, torture and lawless detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a journey that lasted 15 years until he was finally released in 2016, never having been charged with any offense.

00;01;09;23 - 00;01;44;00

Jonathan Hafetz

The book, which Mr. Salahi wrote and which was published while he was still a prisoner at Guantanamo, went on to become an acclaimed international bestseller. The film brings Mohamedou Slahi's gripping and moving story to life. It features an all star cast, including Tahar Rahim as Mohamedou Salahi, Jodie Foster as Nancy Hollander, Mohammed as lead lawyer, Shailene Woodley as Terri Duncan, Nancy's co-counsel, and Benedict Cumberbatch as Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Couch, the military officer assigned to prosecute Mr. Slahi, initially for war crimes.

00;01;44;02 - 00;02;09;11

Jonathan Hafetz

The film was nominated for and won numerous awards, including a Golden Globe for Jodie Foster's portrayal of Nancy Hollander. I'm honored to have two incredibly special guests to discuss this film today. First, we have Mohamedou Slahi, the author of Guantanamo Diary, the book on which the Mauritania was based. Mohamedou looks like he was born in Roseau, Mauritania, the ninth of 12 children of a camel herder.

00;02;09;17 - 00;02;31;04

Jonathan Hafetz

His family moved to the capital of New York, shot when he was a child, where he excelled in school and earned a scholarship to study electrical engineering in Duisburg, Germany. In 2001, he was living and working in his home country of Mauritania when he was detained and rendered to Jordan, beginning an ordeal that he would chronicle in his internationally acclaimed bestselling Guantanamo Diary.

00;02;31;10 - 00;02;57;25

Jonathan Hafetz

The manuscript, which Mr. Slahi wrote in his isolation cell in the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, remained classified for almost eight years and was finally declassified with substantial redactions in 2013. It's the first work published by a then imprisoned prisoner at Guantanamo. It was published in the United States and the United Kingdom in January 2015, and became an international bestseller, published in 25 languages.

00;02;57;28 - 00;03;29;17

Jonathan Hafetz

After 15 years of detention, Mohamedou was released on October 17th, 2016 to Mauritania. The following year, he published a restored edition of Guantanamo Diary, filling in the US government's redactions, and in 2021 he published his first novel, The Actual True Story of Ahmed and Saga, which was published by Ohio University Press. He currently resides in the Netherlands with his family, where he advocates for closure of the Guantanamo prison and continues his career as an advocate for justice and as an acclaimed writer.

00;03;29;23 - 00;03;57;08

Jonathan Hafetz

Our other guest is Nancy Hollander. Nancy is a partner at Friedman, Boyd Hollander Goldberg, the firm she joined in 1980. She's also an associate tenant at London's Doughty Street Chambers, and is of counsel with the Geneva firm of civil leaning advocates for more than four decades. Miss Hollander's practice is focused on representing individuals and organizations accused of crimes, including those involving national security issues, on trial and on appeal.

00;03;57;12 - 00;04;28;10

Jonathan Hafetz

She was lead appellate counsel for Chelsea manning in the military appellate courts. She also won Miss Manning's release in 2017, when President Obama commuted her sentence from 35 years to seven years. Nancy has also represented two prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Mohamedou Slahi and Rahim Al Nashiri, who is facing the death penalty and for whom she's won two landmark cases in the European Court of Human Rights, providing funds for his family and accountability for his torture at the hands of agents of the US government.

00;04;28;15 - 00;04;59;02

Jonathan Hafetz

In addition to her criminal defense practice, Miss Hollander has been counsel in numerous other cases. She argued and won a historic case involving religious freedom in the US Supreme Court. She served as a consultant to the defense in a high profile terrorism case in Ireland, and has assisted counsel and other international cases. In 1992 to 93, Hollander was the first woman president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, chosen by her peers as a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, as well as the American Board of Criminal Lawyers.

00;04;59;10 - 00;05;26;29

Jonathan Hafetz

She's also a member of the European Criminal Bar Association, and in 2017, she was appointed to one of the American Bar Association's International Criminal Justice Standards Steering Committees to develop standards for international criminal trials. A seasoned trial lawyer and respected criminal law expert, Miss Hollander has taught in numerous trial practice programs in the US, Europe and Russia, and conducted more than 200 seminars and presentations around the globe on various subjects.

00;05;27;01 - 00;06;02;26

Jonathan Hafetz

Nancy's received numerous professional awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from America's Top 100 lawyers for New Mexico. In 2001, she was named as one of America's Top 50 Women Litigators by the National Law Journal, and in 2006, she was profiled in Super Lawyer's Top 25 New Mexico Lawyers and has continued to be recognized every year since then. It's a true pleasure to have Mohamedou and Nancy on this podcast, and I should add that I worked closely with Nancy and Teri Duncan on Mohamed use Case during his imprisonment when I was at the ACLU.

00;06;03;01 - 00;06;12;21

Jonathan Hafetz

So in a sense, this feels like a little bit of a family reunion. It's so great to see you both and to hear you both and to have you on the podcast. Welcome.

00;06;12;24 - 00;06;13;26

Nancy Hollander

Thank you.

00;06;13;29 - 00;06;43;20

Mohamedou Ould

Thank you John. Thank you, my lawyer, John, for having me again. And like I said, this is surreal for me because I remember when I was in Guantanamo Bay 14 years ago when you first joined my habeas corpus case, and you took you took it upon yourself to pick apart these so-called AUM, a U. Use of military force, a umph, something like that.

00;06;43;21 - 00;07;09;25

Mohamedou Ould

Think of it. Yeah. And, I was terrified because when I saw your arguing in the court, you had these very thick, you know, very thick paper stack that you had in front of you, and you were talking to the judge to the court. Actually, I didn't. And sent anything, and I was sitting by myself. I'm really like.

00;07;09;28 - 00;07;38;06

Mohamedou Ould

And and this is like, so surreal for me. And I'm sorry just to jump on this and say this because I always wanted to tell you and Nancy this. I was terrified because it was a like nightmare. I was picked up from Africa in front of my mother. I can never forget, you know, one of these, mukhabarat secret bodies pulled away, just like you saw in the movie.

00;07;38;08 - 00;08;09;16

Mohamedou Ould

And I could see my mother getting smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror. And then she disappeared as after 200m, when the police car turned right and then turned left and I was taken, I was disappeared, absolutely disappeared. And now I found myself just like a nightmare in front of people I don't know, I never met, you know, inner core that does not belong in my neighborhood.

00;08;09;19 - 00;08;41;21

Mohamedou Ould

I never asked to come to the United States of America. I never applied for a visa for anything. And ironically enough, one of the reason that the United States of America picked up arms in, after the declaration of Independence. One of the reason was that the British government used to take American citizens in the colonies, and take them away from the United States to the UK in order to secure their conviction.

00;08;41;24 - 00;09;08;24

Mohamedou Ould

That's actually is the Declaration of Independence. And I found myself in that ordeal and predicament, I would say, and, except that I did not understand the language, especially the special coded court language, you know, that you guys discuss about and someone ask question. But I don't know why they ask the question. And, it was just read, I am so happy.

00;09;09;01 - 00;09;32;22

Mohamedou Ould

And I'm so grateful for you two and the rest of the team that you took me from. Death penalty as death penalty case to be a free man who was never convicted and not even indicted. And for that, I thank you so much. And I'm so happy. And I know life is limited, but I'm enjoying every day.

00;09;32;24 - 00;09;55;16

Jonathan Hafetz

That's so wonderful to hear. Mohammed, you hear you at speak as a as a free man after that horrific odyssey that's depicted in the film when you just as you said, and then see that in the opening when you're at this wedding celebration and then the next minute your life changes forever. This 15 year odyssey into a complete nightmare.

00;09;55;16 - 00;10;21;11

Jonathan Hafetz

And you mentioned this a, as this authorization for military force. It's this statute which was passed after 911, which is just very simple, basically said we're going to give the president the power to use military force to go after al-Qaida and the Taliban and to go into Afghanistan. But that statute was used and really misused by the Bush administration, by the Obama administration.

00;10;21;13 - 00;10;46;05

Jonathan Hafetz

Every administration since to conduct this global war on terror, which had as its victims people like you who were just picked up from their homes, never been in Afghanistan or fought against the United States thousands of miles from any battlefield and disappeared, held as, quote, enemy combatants and subjected to torture and abusive treatment. And it's just so heartening to see you emerge.

00;10;46;11 - 00;11;00;18

Jonathan Hafetz

I don't know, I mean, whether the law had so much to do with it. I don't know, Nancy, do you? I mean, because in the in the movie, your character talks a lot about the importance of the law and the Constitution. But I've come to question how much that mattered in any of this.

00;11;00;20 - 00;11;30;05

Nancy Hollander

I don't think the law mattered at all. I think this was all, let's just grab as many people as we can, torture them. Although I question whether the torture was to try to get any information, I think they knew all along that the torture wasn't going to work, but they didn't care. They just wanted confessions, convictions. Initially, you know, the government never thought anyone would find out about Guantanamo.

00;11;30;08 - 00;11;57;22

Nancy Hollander

I didn't think that any law would be involved. The first military commissions didn't even have any appeal to a court. Went from the military commission, I think, to the president who got to decide whether somebody was guilty or not was ridiculous. And it's still the military commission still has nothing to do with American law or certainly American justice.

00;11;57;24 - 00;12;22;29

Nancy Hollander

The Constitution doesn't apply. You know, it doesn't matter. But Mohamedou wasn't even brought in front of the military commission. In fact, we kept saying, charge him. Give us a court where we can do something, put on real evidence. And of course, they never had any real evidence, so they weren't willing to do that. But you're right, the law had little to do with it.

00;12;22;29 - 00;12;43;16

Nancy Hollander

It was we're going to get every one we can because we lost 3000 people. We don't care how many other people we kill, how many hundreds of thousands of Afghans we kill Iraqis, people in Africa we capture. We didn't care. We, as in the United States, didn't care. I cared, you cared.

00;12;43;18 - 00;13;01;25

Jonathan Hafetz

And the law, too. And this is in the film, in 2010, Judge Robertson in the district court in Washington, D.C., granted Mohammed his habeas petition. And there's a scene after Mohamedou. I don't know if that's accurate or not where you're celebrating, when you get the news. I think you learned by a letter. Yeah. I won my case.

00;13;02;02 - 00;13;23;24

Jonathan Hafetz

I'm going home. It seems to vindicate what Nancy was saying, you know? Right. You have Nancy through Jodie Foster in the movie. The Constitution doesn't have an asterisk. You know, this is America. Rule of law. And I went back. Actually, I have to admit, I'm complicit in this as well. I went back and pulled the ACLU press release from that day, and I was quoted as proclaiming this a major victory for the rule of law.

00;13;23;27 - 00;13;49;26

Jonathan Hafetz

And yet Mohamedou languished in jail for six more years, and it wasn't a court that led to his release. It was, approval by the review board. But it wasn't really the habeas process. So I think, well, it certainly had nothing to do with what the government did. But in terms of seeking and obtaining Mohammed his freedom, I think the law was, I have to say, a little bit disappointing, to put it mildly.

00;13;49;28 - 00;14;22;12

Nancy Hollander

Well, the rule of law applied when Judge Robertson ruled in the habeas case. But as I often say, President Obama said out of one side of his mouth, we're going to close Guantanamo and out of the other side of his mouth. His Justice Department, which he could have certainly spoken with, appealed almost every single habeas case. That was one, including Muhammad's and Muhammad, who stayed in jail for another seven years.

00;14;22;15 - 00;14;27;12

Nancy Hollander

The card of President Obama's Justice Department.

00;14;27;14 - 00;14;46;16

Jonathan Hafetz

Mohamedou. I mean, I can only imagine you've already been locked up for about nine years without charge and the terrific torture that you endured, and then you went, you're vindicated. And yet it's taken away. Prison sentence. I mean, I, I don't know how you got through that. What that was like, you know.

00;14;46;18 - 00;15;12;14

Mohamedou Ould

You're right. And Nancy actually sent me all the declarations you guys made, including you. John, your declaration. And I remember you described my case as one of the most quote unquote, egregious case. And I remember I had to pull to look, for a dictionary to, learn what egregious means, and that's that the first time I heard this word.

00;15;12;14 - 00;15;41;02

Mohamedou Ould

And I never forget what it meant since then. And this is also whenever I like to speak in Mauritania or in Europe, you know, say no one understands. How could a judge declare you like innocent or not innocent? Not. There is no evidence to hold you, and you could still be held, seven more years. 6 or 7 more years.

00;15;41;02 - 00;16;11;00

Mohamedou Ould

Closer to seven. You know, because this completely negates and destroys the presumption of innocence. And this is in a democracy. You can hear that in Africa or in the Middle East. But hearing that something like this happens in the in the United States of America, a country that everybody is supposed to look up to is just, counter-intuitive, to be honest.

00;16;11;02 - 00;16;33;02

Mohamedou Ould

And I thought I was going home and like people say, but they would appeal the good one of the guard told me they would appeal. They can appeal. I said, who can? They can appeal. But I'm going, oh, so. And if they can find something, they can kidnap you one more time. But there is no evidence to hold you and you still cannot be held pending.

00;16;33;04 - 00;17;02;13

Mohamedou Ould

Pending. You know, another decision. This is so crazy. And what I explain to people here and to people in Mauritania is that I was also a shock because of the jurisprudence. Prudence and the law in the rest of America is still developing. You know, this is not like in Europe here with this very strict Napoleon code of conduct, just like military.

00;17;02;16 - 00;17;24;04

Mohamedou Ould

And, you know, the rules are, by and large, very clear. But the United of America is adopting, what they call here in Europe, a continental law with the common law, because the common law is just one. The jury think you are a bad guy. You are a bad guy. When the jury does not think, then you are not a bad guy.

00;17;24;06 - 00;17;55;23

Mohamedou Ould

This is common law. The community decides. And the America didn't decide for either, you know, and is still developing and still that way. When I was in horror, how divisive and how Partizan this discussion about the nomination. You kind of bring Jesus Christ back. And if he's brought as a nominee by the Democrats, the Republicans would oppose him and vice versa.

00;17;55;25 - 00;18;33;09

Mohamedou Ould

I'm sorry to say this, but one of the most dishonest people in the, in the, in the Senate are the lawyers, you know, like, listen to Ted Cruz and the other guy and the other day, they were discussing with one of the nominee, you chose to defend criminals your whole career. You could have been a prosecutor. And like, I was like, oh my God, isn't that the shape of his of a lawyer is to defend people who are suspected of crime at times horrific crimes.

00;18;33;11 - 00;18;59;13

Mohamedou Ould

But this is all a game, you know, to make the person look bad. And those are lawyers. They understand this. You know, it's so like populist. So this honest. And I'm just looking in horror. But one of the things that you guys achieved just to, to bring this very long answer to a close in that the audit that I couldn't be interrogated anymore.

00;18;59;16 - 00;19;23;16

Mohamedou Ould

And I can tell you that the FBI did everything to destroy this court audit using me. They came to me. They say we get to fail once we get to all the books you want, we get you the food you want. You just need to write that you don't accept this audit. And I was like, I'm a detainee.

00;19;23;16 - 00;19;39;15

Mohamedou Ould

I don't want to have any trouble with the court. You know? I'm just playing dumb, to be honest. They told me it's your right. I was like, whoa, now all of a sudden I have rights? Of course, I didn't tell them any of these.

00;19;39;17 - 00;20;07;10

Mohamedou Ould

They told me that it's my right to destroy the court order and to say I'm not accepting it and to invite them back. And I was just so enjoy, like their frustration with this court order that after that session, after the judge was so angry with them because, John, what you want to know, I would come from the session, from the court, and they start interrogating me during the trial.

00;20;07;13 - 00;20;12;08

Nancy Hollander

Because we we learned that we learned that during the trial.

00;20;12;10 - 00;20;29;08

Mohamedou Ould

Yeah. Go ahead, explain it. Because I didn't know because they wanted to have evidence so badly and they were running out of time. I don't know how they could run out of time when they interrogated for ten straight years, every day, day in, day out.

00;20;29;11 - 00;20;52;00

Nancy Hollander

We found out that they were actually interrogating you about what you were going to be examined about, cross-examined about, and I recently reread that part of the transcript, because now I remember saying to Judge Robertson, I am going to try to say this calmly, Your Honor.

00;20;52;02 - 00;20;54;11

Mohamedou Ould

But I remember that I don't.

00;20;54;13 - 00;21;25;20

Nancy Hollander

Understand how angry I am. And then he turned to them and said, what do you mean? And I think it was, Mr. Patten. Well, it's not us, judge. And he said, aren't you the government? There will be no more interrogation now, what you may or may not know, Muhammad, you or may not remember, is that after the hearing, the government filed motions which are classified.

00;21;25;20 - 00;21;35;20

Nancy Hollander

So I can't tell you what they said, but they filed motions to get the interrogations back, and the judge simply never ruled. He simply never heard them.

00;21;35;22 - 00;22;09;13

Mohamedou Ould

This like, makes my heart drop because I couldn't imagine that small win. You know, being destroyed because this is all. They held me there. Later on, I learned also after the film even was released, I met the former minister of exterior. And in 2012, you know, they asked the government for my release, official letter, and they wrote them back that I was quote unquote, un releasable.

00;22;09;16 - 00;22;42;16

Mohamedou Ould

And the only reason why they kept me there is for interrogation. And the now is that they don't have any interrogations. They just went so like berserk. And they kept like giving everybody a chance to argue that case in front of this, government body. Actually, you know, the Periodic Review Board, I think they call it. And they just wouldn't give me they just wouldn't give me just like I think they allowed me in June.

00;22;42;18 - 00;23;07;21

Mohamedou Ould

This is like about four months before I was released. You know, this is like crazy. This has I kept asking Nancy why they give everybody a chance. I know detainees who went many times, but they wouldn't give me one single chance. And they kept to the very last. They send me FBI and two people who work with the FBI tell me, Mohamedou, you need to improve your life.

00;23;07;23 - 00;23;19;04

Mohamedou Ould

And they came to me. They took everything, you know. And I wrote Nancy, you know, and just like I'm so happy that the judge didn't throw, you know, under this.

00;23;19;06 - 00;23;46;25

Nancy Hollander

Well, what you also may not know. And, Jonathan, you may not know this, but Colonel Davis, when he was the chief prosecutor, Mohamedou wrote and said that he had come to visit him. And, you know, we discussed this, Sylvia, Ontario. And I discussed this because Sylvia was in the case then, and she thought maybe we should take him to the bar and complain that he knew Mohamedou was represented.

00;23;46;25 - 00;24;11;25

Nancy Hollander

And Mohamedou told him, but then we decided, well, let's just go meet with him. So he went to meet with him and he said, we just want him to be a witness and talk about, you know, Islam, etc.. And I said, well, what are you going to offer him? And he said, well, you know, his family can come to the US.

00;24;11;25 - 00;24;36;20

Nancy Hollander

We can bring them or take them out. He didn't say to us, take them out of Mauritania. I said, they don't want to leave more Tangier. He wants to leave Guantanamo. And we discussed it and we left it that we were going to fly down with him in one of his Gulfstream, one of the government's Gulfstream jets, and talk to Mohamedou together, because I always wanted to leave the door open.

00;24;36;20 - 00;25;01;06

Nancy Hollander

After all, it was Mohamedou, his choice anyway, and we might get something out of it. And then he quit. Colonel Davis quit and he quit because he was a good guy and refused to deal with this tortured evidence. And of course, this turned out to be a friend. But if he had stayed and we had gone down to meet with Mohamedou, who knows where that could have led?

00;25;01;08 - 00;25;02;04

Jonathan Hafetz

What year was that?

00;25;02;11 - 00;25;19;16

Nancy Hollander

Must have been early 2007. It had to be early because it was while Sylvia was still on the case. It was before that government's, factual return is before Boumediene, which required the government to respond to our habeas.

00;25;19;19 - 00;25;48;23

Mohamedou Ould

You know, like one of the things that Nancy taught me also, John, during the trial, that the court and you need to correct me on this, but that's what I understood, that the court assumes that the government is acting in good faith. And but everything, John, we discover since the habeas corpus in this discovery, everything at least what I saw showing that the government was acting in bad faith.

00;25;48;25 - 00;26;20;03

Mohamedou Ould

You know, this is back in 2005, when first I was designated as first detainee for death penalty, just like in the movie. But the movie does not show my face. When they told me I was selected for this penalty, I remember First Sergeant Charlie sitting like about 70 centimeter away from me and explaining to me what this penalty means, and he gave me like options.

00;26;20;05 - 00;26;47;00

Mohamedou Ould

One of the option is to pick up someone and make that person also guilty. And this fight against that person. And then I get 30 years or I face death penalty. And he was telling me, your face, the way you speak, what you wear, this is a guaranteed conviction in American court. And it turns out he was right about this, and I had no feeling.

00;26;47;00 - 00;27;12;19

Mohamedou Ould

I completely lost any feeling. You know, I just was listening to him and, like, nodding. And I just wanted him to go away so I could go back in my cell and just be alone. So in 2005, when the coach quit, just like in the movie, Mo Davis, the good guy, Air Force colonel took over. And this is actually on record.

00;27;12;21 - 00;27;42;24

Mohamedou Ould

And they ask FBI, CIA, military intelligence and they all agreed there is no evidence, all of them unanimously, not one single agency said that there was something that warrant, you know, my input is and then when he decided never to bring me to any court because there is not nothing that he could present. But they never came to me and told me that like, sorry, you know what?

00;27;42;24 - 00;27;59;15

Mohamedou Ould

This was a mistake, you know? And you know, we're sorry. Mistakes happen. We were very angry. No, they kept just, like, piling up horrific mistreatment in order to hide. You know, the mistake that they did in the beginning.

00;27;59;17 - 00;28;18;27

Jonathan Hafetz

No admission that they made a mistake. And, you know, you talk about, like, the level of corruption and all the things that were done to keep you inside. And you mentioned to a count who is played by Benedict Cumberbatch in the movie, right? He's the gung ho prosecutor. He's exciting. Here is he's going to be prosecuting this person who everyone tells him was a big all kind of recruiter.

00;28;18;27 - 00;28;40;19

Jonathan Hafetz

Right. And then the way the movie describes it, like he learns the truth, right? That there's no evidence that all the statements are a product of torture. And so he quits in protest. So in a way, it seems like it's a good moment. And someone standing up, military official, lawyer standing up. But then there's all these other things that happen to keep you inside prison.

00;28;40;21 - 00;29;09;27

Nancy Hollander

And the couch gets a lot of credit for that. I mean, this guy was a marine, and when he learned about the torture and it was, Fallon, Mark Fallon who actually helped him get the information in real life, but they didn't want to give it to him. And he figured it out when he saw that Mohamedou was denying everything and then all of a sudden said yes, yes, yes to all these questions.

00;29;10;00 - 00;29;35;29

Nancy Hollander

And he knew that something was going on, was he had previously been a prisoner subjected to very loud music. Let the Bodies Hit the Floor was the song they played, and strobe lights and when he saw that, he was horrified and he said to the enlisted guy, this isn't how we treat prisoners. And he said, sir, you're not allowed to be here.

00;29;35;29 - 00;29;59;03

Nancy Hollander

You have to leave here. So he already knew that, but he first went to a marine, somebody in the Marines who said, just do your job exactly like it's in the movie. Just do your job. And then he went to church. That's all absolutely accurate. And he walked in and put it down and said, you can give me another case.

00;29;59;03 - 00;30;21;12

Nancy Hollander

And he did take another case, but I won't do this one unless you find evidence. And at that point he really thought there must be evidence. Surely it must be out there somewhere. I mean, they've had this guy locked up and slowly he began to realize that there wasn't. And he and Mohamedou actually met, was it last year?

00;30;21;12 - 00;30;22;23

Nancy Hollander

Mohamedou? Wasn't it?

00;30;22;23 - 00;30;26;05

Mohamedou Ould

Last year was met at your, company?

00;30;26;07 - 00;30;28;18

Nancy Hollander

Yeah. In Geneva. Yeah.

00;30;28;20 - 00;30;29;03

Mohamedou Ould

Isn't it?

00;30;29;07 - 00;30;44;25

Nancy Hollander

Servant who? Law firm that is invited me. Mohamedou and Stuart Couch, and they met for the first time. I have a wonderful photograph of three of us together. It was just such a momentous moment.

00;30;44;27 - 00;31;08;00

Mohamedou Ould

I really think, John, if you could take one of those photog photographs and put it in your podcast, maybe it's really beautiful because I gave him a copy of my book, and he was really very happy to meet me. And we did very, very good discussion. And we talk about death penalty. And he still said that is a proponent of death penalty.

00;31;08;03 - 00;31;31;01

Mohamedou Ould

And I told him, I take this very personally, you know, about this because I know firsthand that you can kill people who are innocent. And I can never submit to something like this, you know, because we just don't have the kind of guarantees that, you know, will always punish guilty people. And, you can see also that he was happy to meet me and Nancy.

00;31;31;01 - 00;31;44;04

Mohamedou Ould

Of course, they became friends. And he wants also to visit me one more time with Nancy. I don't know whether they can make time to visit us in Europe. And by the way, you are also you are invited. You need to come here.

00;31;44;07 - 00;31;46;10

Jonathan Hafetz

I will, I've got to come in the spring.

00;31;46;12 - 00;31;49;28

Mohamedou Ould

Absolutely you are. You have a place to stay when you come.

00;31;50;00 - 00;32;09;27

Jonathan Hafetz

Thank you. Mohamedou, there's that scene with Nancy and Stuart Couch or Jodie Foster, Benedict Cumberbatch where he gives kind of exactly what you're saying. There's evidence we're going to prosecute and very sure of himself. And Nancy says, Jodie Foster says, what if you're wrong, right. It doesn't occur to him. And then it does, although he still believes in the death penalty.

00;32;10;04 - 00;32;28;25

Jonathan Hafetz

But your story shows all the horrific things at Guantanamo. But I think more broadly about the death penalty. People make mistakes. And that's a big problem with the death penalty because it's very versatile. Mohamedou, you mentioned before you did not know English when you went to Guantanamo. And the film talks about that and shows you kind of learning and picking up words.

00;32;28;25 - 00;32;50;13

Jonathan Hafetz

You spoke three other languages at the time. Now you've added English, but you wrote Guantanamo Diary in 2005. So in Guantanamo you've been there for a couple of years. There's a long time for detention. But in terms of a new language, not a long time yet. You wrote this in English. It's amazing. How did you do it and and why did you decide to write down what was happening to you?

00;32;50;13 - 00;33;01;15

Jonathan Hafetz

I mean, I'm sure you never thought what would happen happen, that it would become this international bestseller, the subject of the movie. It's such an important book. What were you thinking and what motivated you to put this on paper?

00;33;01;18 - 00;33;24;29

Mohamedou Ould

So everything you said is correct. When I came to Guantanamo Bay, not only didn't I speak English, but I didn't want to hear English. Absolute. It was like, it's like you're shooting in my ears. And I used to plug my ears, you know, to avoid just hearing them. You know, back then, the American accent was so horrific to me.

00;33;25;01 - 00;33;49;21

Mohamedou Ould

You know, I just I just didn't want to hear it. And, you know, this is like a first reaction because probably because of the trauma and the pain, you know, that I suffered my first direct contact with American forces, special forces was in Jordan after eight months in Jordan. It was really painful, these eight months in the darkness when I was taken away.

00;33;49;24 - 00;34;16;20

Mohamedou Ould

And I remember I always wanted to know they did. And I remember like scratching when I think this is a day I would scratch and count. After eight months, I lost ten days. I don't know what happened to the ten days. When they came to me. They said, you free after eight months. And I was crying. I don't know what to say, but I didn't want to be free.

00;34;16;22 - 00;34;45;24

Mohamedou Ould

But I didn't want the nightmare. Why? I didn't want to go outside. Because I could be kidnaped. But the cell was safe from kidnaping because no one would. Kidnaping from a cell to put me back in a cell. But it was so painful. My life 24 seven in darkness. So they told me, you are going home. And I remember I'm always blindfolded, except one time inside the cell and the cell has no windows.

00;34;45;26 - 00;35;14;19

Mohamedou Ould

So my life was always dark, so they took me to a place inside the building compound, and they took the blindfold and I sat in front of a men, middle aged men who had no smile. No, just like poker face and, he gave me back my stuff. Driver's license. I had, I think, about 60 USD in my pocket when we converted.

00;35;14;19 - 00;35;50;08

Mohamedou Ould

I think some euro, some Deutschmark back then. And he asked me whether this is everything. And the answer was always yes, because I was in no place to challenge. And that secret agent officer, supported by the United State of America, they took me about what? They did not take me home. They took me to a special team, turned out to be CIA when they started, like ripping off my clothes and stripping me naked.

00;35;50;10 - 00;36;26;10

Mohamedou Ould

I knew then I was not going to Mauritania. I said, there are two options either death penalty or forever, but a perpetuity in America. And this was so scary. This meant in either case, the and I started to evaluate my life and I had spies, you know, spied on the thing that I wish I hadn't done in spite of the thing I wish I had, I can tell you there was no regret that I didn't have money.

00;36;26;12 - 00;36;51;02

Mohamedou Ould

There is no regret that I didn't have this beautiful woman I always dreamed of. And there is no regret that I didn't have an apartment in Paris. But there was only one thing I regret. Only one thing that I wasn't kind enough with. People like my mother, my sisters, my brothers, my friends, the people I meet, the people I get involved with.

00;36;51;05 - 00;37;21;07

Mohamedou Ould

And I took it upon myself. And I told Nancy, and Nancy knows this because Nancy saw me in very, very dark places. And I always told Nancy, Nancy, I have a vow of kindness. I cannot break that vow of kindness, and it's not easy. And it's not perfect. But that's when I use the vow of kindness. So this reaction of hating the language was very initial and not real.

00;37;21;09 - 00;37;45;21

Mohamedou Ould

I started to hear and pick up words, but I wasn't allowed to have papers or pen, and later on they decided to take all the books that could teach you anything about the language from the Danish, because I didn't have access to books anyway, so they did not want detainee to learn the language because they can hear them over the radio, they can understand what they want to say.

00;37;45;24 - 00;38;08;06

Mohamedou Ould

So there was like complete, you know, shut down. But I was very stubborn. And then they got started like to smuggle books and then I start to read them and give them back to them. And they used to give me paper to write the answer, and then I would write English words and memorize them, just like in Koran school.

00;38;08;08 - 00;38;42;17

Mohamedou Ould

Very efficient. And I memorize every day whatever I hear, I memorize. And then after I don't know how many months I could speak, I could understand. And then, just like I think Hemingway said, there is nothing much to writing. You just sit at the typewriter and bleed and, you know, it was the story of writing. And also, I just want to mention that Nancy told me that you could see that development of my linguistic skills.

00;38;42;20 - 00;38;53;04

Mohamedou Ould

Like every time she said that my writing is better than the one before because I was, you know, teaching myself every day.

00;38;53;06 - 00;39;10;05

Jonathan Hafetz

Truly incredible that we were able to do that. And that became such a powerful book. And then it took years for us to get out. Nancy, you talk about, I mean, the process of getting what Mohamedou wrote out of Guantanamo and cleared by the government censors.

00;39;10;07 - 00;39;37;14

Nancy Hollander

The reason Mohamedou started writing this book was when I first went to see him. He gave us about 160 pages. I think, in a green school notebook that the guards had given him. And I looked at it, but I only could look at it briefly because we at the end of the day, couldn't get it back. For the second day, it it was gone up to the secure room.

00;39;37;16 - 00;40;10;01

Nancy Hollander

So all I knew was that he could write, but actually I never read that book until later when he was started writing us more letters and it all merged in my mind. So it wasn't until much later after he was out, when I went back and reread that part of the book. The first part, which was not classified, which was sent out most of it, that I realized he had told us quite a bit of what he told us later in more detail, but I didn't know that.

00;40;10;03 - 00;40;32;19

Nancy Hollander

But I, I left there and I wrote to him and I said, can you tell me write down, because I know you can write everything that guards the interrogators have asked you. And I did it for two reasons. One, I wanted to know. And second, I wanted to give him something to do. He was obviously an intelligent man.

00;40;32;26 - 00;41;00;04

Nancy Hollander

He knew how to write. I wanted to give him a task to keep his mind functioning, and he was angry at me and he wrote me. And this actually, this letter came out in the Wall Street Journal because we released it. He wrote and said, you know, I was interrogated 18 hours a day for months and months. That's like asking Charlie Sheen how many girlfriends he's had.

00;41;00;11 - 00;41;24;08

Nancy Hollander

Yeah. You know, it was very funny. It's because Mohamedou had learned a lot about American culture at that point, but he did start doing it, and he did it in letter form to me because it was the only way I could get it to come up through the privilege team. And they released it, but they released most of it as either classified or protected fact, all of it.

00;41;24;15 - 00;41;53;27

Nancy Hollander

And we litigated this for a few years in front of a magistrate, arguing that we were entitled to this, and the government saying, well, this has nothing to do with his legal case and our arguing from the Gentilly case. Sometimes public opinion is the only law you get is the jury of public opinion. There's a quote in that case somewhere that I quoted, and we argued that and we lost.

00;41;53;27 - 00;42;12;24

Nancy Hollander

We kept losing. They said it's too much for the privileged team. We won't know if there's any codes in there. We can't do it. And so finally we went back to Mohamedou and said, look, if we want this out, you're going to have to give up the attorney client privilege. And we don't think there's anything harmful in here, but it's your choice.

00;42;12;24 - 00;42;40;11

Nancy Hollander

And he agreed. So the first thing the government did was make it an exhibit against him. And it stayed protected. And then we litigated that. And the lawyer for the privilege team agreed that they would go back and review it. Whoever the agencies were that, you know, had equity in this. We never knew who they were, probably the CIA, the FBI, Dia, who knows?

00;42;40;14 - 00;43;11;23

Nancy Hollander

Anyway, that took two years. Then it came back and it was all still protected. And I remember calling that lawyer and saying, this is not what we agreed to. And I have the notes here. And she said, you're right. So they sent it back again, and it took another year. And then all of a sudden, one day, out of the blue, 466 pages unclassified, showed up in my office with a letter saying we could use what was in that 466 pages.

00;43;11;25 - 00;43;38;23

Nancy Hollander

And that's when we found Larry seems to edit it, and then we found the publisher, and then it took a long time to get it out. It was a long, long process. From 2005 to 2000. And when did the book come out? 2015, 2005 to 2015, for the book to come out. And I can tell you another kind of funny story that you'll appreciate.

00;43;38;25 - 00;44;00;28

Nancy Hollander

Mohamedou was in prison, so it was kind of bittersweet for him. The book comes out and, I get to go out with Larry and Terry to some extent, and, you know, we're on TV and we're on all kinds of radio shows and television shows and we're in England, and we get to be out there talking about this book.

00;44;00;28 - 00;44;31;24

Nancy Hollander

And he's sitting there in Guantanamo. Well, I was in London and I said to the publicist for Canongate who was coordinating this, we need to get on the Russian television. And she said, well, we don't usually book our tea. And I said, yeah, but Mohamedou seized tea in his cell. And at that moment I literally at that moment I get a text on my phone from R.T. saying, Will you come?

00;44;31;26 - 00;44;52;21

Nancy Hollander

Kind of bizarre. And I showed it to her and I thought, Old Larry, this is the most important interview we're going to do. So put everything into it. And sure enough, you know, our tea is like CNN. They repeat everything and they have a headline. Sure enough, Mohammed, you saw it over and over and the guard saw it.

00;44;52;21 - 00;45;01;05

Nancy Hollander

And it was it was beautiful that he got to see it and they got to see it. It was really this really something.

00;45;01;07 - 00;45;22;24

Jonathan Hafetz

That is amazing that I think now that that's the television station that you were able to get in Guantanamo and that the where you write this amazing book, you're still locked up, right? Nancy? Larry seems the editor and Terry are out the book is taking off like a rocket and you're still there. And the only way you get to see about it here directly is through an interview on Russian TV.

00;45;22;24 - 00;45;23;22

Jonathan Hafetz

I mean it, yes.

00;45;23;24 - 00;45;52;16

Nancy Hollander

Well, the US had stopped letting them see any television they had to pay for. So while we were not allowed to talk about current events when we were in Guantanamo, he's watching our TV, press TV, which is the Iranian station or Venezuelan station. And at the same time, during the the Libyan war with Kadhafi, he's watching all these Libyan stations.

00;45;52;19 - 00;46;12;11

Nancy Hollander

Then he and I watched with gadhafi talking. And, it was bizarre, but that's what they could watch because it was free. The US could get it for free. And, you know, it makes no sense. But I think maybe they didn't know what they were doing. I don't understand, but that's that's for sure.

00;46;12;11 - 00;46;29;26

Jonathan Hafetz

They didn't know what they were doing. You Mahamadou. And for you just to see like you're there. And what is that to see this book you wrote just take off and you're, you're still in prison writing a book about your story, about the injustice, and you are still on the receiving end of it in terms of experiencing the injustice itself.

00;46;29;26 - 00;46;33;14

Jonathan Hafetz

And again, it's just like another thing you had to go through.

00;46;33;17 - 00;47;02;12

Mohamedou Ould

Yes. So what happened after I won habeas corpus case with your team? The government was fighting, sending me. You trying just to interrogate me? Going back to the good old time. And I said every time, no, but thank you. And so when they gave up on me, they came to me and they took everything, including like TV, the movies, that I had, everything.

00;47;02;15 - 00;47;27;21

Mohamedou Ould

And so I was taken. But what they did there was like something positive. I was taken out from the ghost detainees status. I was not in any computer. You cannot see me. You cannot find me. But they put me back and then they took me away. And then they put me with the first with just one detainee. And then after that isolation for different reason.

00;47;27;24 - 00;47;55;08

Mohamedou Ould

And I was sitting because now I had access to detainees library so I could get books. And with the library, you can also get instructed, like every once or twice a week, you can get instructed, you can choose. And I wanted to learn Spanish, but there was no one who spoke Spanish from the instructor, but one Egyptian contractor said, yeah, I can help you a little bit so he could give me a book.

00;47;55;09 - 00;48;31;20

Mohamedou Ould

And then we sat there one day learning Spanish, and then the TV headlines. The first thing that came is my book. I was like reading. I was paying attention. And then Ahmed, he called himself Ahmed and he said, look, you know this guy. And then it was my photo, you know, and I felt really free. You know, this is like one of the moment that you understand that freedom is not just being outside, you know, out and about or having money, but there is the freedom that is inside you.

00;48;31;22 - 00;48;50;12

Mohamedou Ould

And ironically, that kind of freedom, no one can take that away from happiness, forgiveness and kindness, those kinds of freedom that you can even maintain in yourself in chains are the kinds of freedom that no one can take away.

00;48;50;14 - 00;49;05;14

Jonathan Hafetz

It's beautiful. I mean, it's so easy to say, but to live at Mohamedou, I mean, it's like the test that it's like job for you like to have that after going through it. You did this wanting to say it like you're saying it. But to have that and to live that when you've gone through what you went through is, is another thing.

00;49;05;16 - 00;49;32;13

Jonathan Hafetz

I mean, I think it's interesting fact about the book and I don't know, I mean, if you have a different view, Nancy, your mom and you. But I think the book was also important in obtaining your release, because I think it made it untenable for the Obama administration to continue holding you. So between that and other things, you did, you know, your relationship with Steve Wood, the guard who, you became friends with, you ended up giving evidence or statement before the Periodic Review Board.

00;49;32;13 - 00;49;48;07

Jonathan Hafetz

Right. A little bit of shown in the movie, there's a guard who you have a kind of friendly conversations with. But all these things, and especially the book, is what really got you out of Guantanamo more than anything else, more than habeas and lawyers briefs and arguments about you were mad for anything like that.

00;49;48;10 - 00;50;15;12

Nancy Hollander

We also had a wonderful personal representative. They were given personal representative in case they didn't have lawyers. And, his, Mr. Jackson, you know, some of them weren't any good and they didn't care. He really cared. He really cared about Mohamedou. He believed in him. And he was a big help in framing what Mohamedou was going to say in front of the Periodic Review board.

00;50;15;14 - 00;50;40;03

Nancy Hollander

You know, which became important. And so I like to give him credit for that. I saw him afterwards. I kept in touch with him. And he was the engineer. He was in the Corps of Engineers, nothing to do with the law. So he would just recognize someone who was innocent and he wanted to get him out. And it was really something was really something.

00;50;40;05 - 00;51;06;19

Mohamedou Ould

I remember that night, I think is he is his name is Jesse. I don't remember his name. Something like Jesse was, as his first name was something with us. And you're right, he was very helpful and we went through a lot of material. And so the bottom line is this in order to get out of Guantanamo Bay and this is not me, this is the former prosecutor, Colonel Herman Davis.

00;51;06;19 - 00;51;29;20

Mohamedou Ould

He said in order to be able to be free, you have to have committed a crime. And there is no way out of it because the government needs to show we convict this person and this person served his time. Now we can release. Outside of that, there is no way for you to get out. So for me, I needed a miracle.

00;51;29;23 - 00;51;50;26

Mohamedou Ould

And if we you know, this is my judgment. If we to name only one miracle, it would be the writing of the book. I think it was like the saving grace. However, it's not only that the government is very powerful. You know, we have democracy. I believe in democracy. I think democracy is the best we could come up with.

00;51;50;28 - 00;52;18;23

Mohamedou Ould

But I think there is a mistake in the design of democracy because we have these three different branches of government. You know, in every democracy you have the judiciary, you have the legislative, and you have the executive branch. However, the executive branch has so much power, you know, that it's completely opposite the balance of power. If a judge declares you free, you know, you're an officer of the law.

00;52;18;23 - 00;53;03;14

Mohamedou Ould

Just like Nancy. But if a judge tells you guys your client is free, you cannot free that client. Only the government can free that client. And this is a very upsetting thing in the whole Democratic, which is the best thing. And so the other thing that we needed, we really needed so much momentum. And I can name two things that really were very powerful, like the letter from my former prosecutor, Moore Davis, who wrote in my support and the letter of my firm that you mentioned in the movie, Steve Wood, we became friends in prison, but we kept our friendship in the closet, and it all came out when I was freed.

00;53;03;16 - 00;53;25;26

Mohamedou Ould

Person we came out of the friendship closet and beside the other thing, because I also was very active in my defense, and I think that's very important, like always for a lawyer. And you know this better than me to recruit, first and foremost, your client, get to the client, believe that he is or she is innocent because this is video up.

00;53;25;29 - 00;53;59;03

Mohamedou Ould

At some point I really thought I must have done something. I've forgotten this internalization of racism of colonial liaison, of, you know, victimhood because the good people is the American government. I see their faces. They were beautiful closes. They are the one who give you food every day. They are the one who smile. And if you see the tiny, very upset crying all the time, it's not a person I don't want myself.

00;53;59;05 - 00;54;27;09

Mohamedou Ould

I don't want to look in the mirror and see myself. I want to look in the mirror and see a sergeant or an American interrogator because they were good, close, and they take good care of themselves because they are not prison, they are not being victimized. And one was denied. And I never told Nancy this. One of the things that were really hard for me to face is the case of a Yemeni who is still in Guantanamo Bay.

00;54;27;09 - 00;54;54;03

Mohamedou Ould

His name is Ramzi. A shame, but Ramzi Shaver was horrifically tortured. And I know this because some of the people who were in the dark place with him, I met them in Guantanamo Bay. But when I told, I told them, guys, I have a problem. They said, what's the what's the problem? I said, the interrogator kept telling me that Ramzi Sabit made a statement against me.

00;54;54;03 - 00;55;16;12

Mohamedou Ould

I don't know him. I do not know him. I saw him once. He could not have made any statement. And then this Yemeni young man told me, Mohammed, do you don't know what happened to him? I was with him in prison. We couldn't sleep because he was crying all night long. This is only a very small part of his imprisonment that I know.

00;55;16;14 - 00;55;38;08

Mohamedou Ould

And I didn't know what to do. Nancy, when they tell me in the board he made a statement against him because there was no, no way for me to fight the statement. And then I couldn't sleep this night. And then I started to write everything I was afraid of. And then I destroy it, destroy, destroy it until it's very small pieces.

00;55;38;08 - 00;55;56;27

Mohamedou Ould

And I go to the bathroom, and then I flush it down, and I think we hit the home button. I don't know what you think, but PRB one shot, one time, and we hit it very hard with every single weapon that we had.

00;55;57;00 - 00;56;14;02

Jonathan Hafetz

I mean, it was an incredible presentation that was made to you to carry through Nancy. The rest of the team, the stars aligned and you were able to go in. I say, you know, if it had been two years later, Mohammed, do I think it's fair to say with the Trump presidency right door to closed, no one got out except for one person.

00;56;14;02 - 00;56;28;22

Jonathan Hafetz

There was an agreement basically a binding agreement as part of a plea negotiation. The only person who got out during Trump, as bad as Obama was, it felt like a close. There was a chance to get out, but the door shut for those next four years under Trump, so fortunate to in terms of the timing.

00;56;28;25 - 00;56;31;24

Nancy Hollander

The PRB is a group.

00;56;31;24 - 00;56;32;15

Mohamedou Ould

Of.

00;56;32;17 - 00;57;06;27

Nancy Hollander

DOJ, and I think five intelligence organizations, and you don't know which ones they are. You never see them. You never get their names, but they have to be unanimous. And then it has to go up to their superiors and they have to be unanimous. And then Congress has 25 days in which to change it. Now, Congress never did change any of them, and sometimes they put them in front of Congress cleverly when Congress was out, because that point no one wanted it.

00;57;07;00 - 00;57;40;07

Nancy Hollander

But then you still had to get out. And Mohamedou was fortunate in that he could go home, which made it easier than, for example, the Yemenis. And, you know, this is another thing that people need to know. There was a Nigerian man who flew, was flying over Detroit and tried to blow up the plane with his underwear. He had been trained by a Yemeni who was actually raised in Las Cruces, New Mexico, by the way.

00;57;40;09 - 00;58;08;25

Nancy Hollander

And so Obama said, president Obama said, no more Yemenis go home. And now who is it who stuck there? Mostly Yemenis, and there are people who've been cleared for release, like Muhammad, who was who were there and who stay there. And I know there's one Yemeni man whose family has money and they've said, we can go anywhere. We can meet him in Bahrain, we can meet him in Qatar.

00;58;08;27 - 00;58;39;04

Nancy Hollander

What do you want? And he's still not out. And there's no excuse for this. So one of the things that Mohamedou and I believe is that the movie, the film can help to get the rest of them out because the book helped Mohamedou shoot. The film originally was supposed to help Mohamedou, too, but it didn't. And I mean, it didn't come out until later, but now it's beginning to give voice more to what's happening in Guantanamo.

00;58;39;10 - 00;59;13;29

Nancy Hollander

And the other thing is that Mohamedou in his guard, Steve. So wonderful guy, are depicted in a 20 minute short called My Brother's Keeper, which is on YouTube. And there are a lot of things called My Brother's Keeper, but you can't miss this one. It's a little brown guy wrapped up in a turban and a big white guy who looks like a soldier on the front of it, and it's worth watching because as sad and horrible as everything is, that's an uplifting and beautiful story.

00;59;14;01 - 00;59;33;18

Jonathan Hafetz

That story itself is so moving. Certainly encourage people to watch it and learn more, but just encapsulate right there all the things wrong with my time illegally. I don't like Mohamedou not charged with the crime for regular court. The government is trying to put him before a military commission, which is his made up court that the Supreme Court struck down originally doesn't provide fair procedure.

00;59;33;18 - 00;59;54;07

Jonathan Hafetz

So it's not a regular court. They can't even put Mohammed you before this made up court because the prosecutor learns that all the evidence was obtained through torture and is unreliable. And there's no offense. They can prove he quits in protest. So then they shift and they hold Mohamedou indefinitely. And there's made up term called enemy combatant. He wins before the district court.

00;59;54;07 - 01;00;22;28

Jonathan Hafetz

We win the habeas petition in 2010, but the government appeals. When you win a criminal trial, if you win in court, like Mohamedou said, before you go home. But no, the government keeps him in for appeals for another seven years, and then he's only goes home because the stars align and he's able to persuade this body that's set up almost like a parole board, except it's government intelligence agencies, and it's for people who've never been convicted of a crime, unlike parole.

01;00;23;00 - 01;00;43;29

Jonathan Hafetz

And they clear Mohamedou, and he's able to get out in the window before Trump shuts down Guantanamo. And because he's fortunate enough in the sense that he has a country to go to, unlike Yemenis or others at Guantanamo, where people I represent have been stateless, who just end up locked up because the U.S. doesn't want to send to their country.

01;00;43;29 - 01;00;52;01

Jonathan Hafetz

So it really is kind of a miracle that you, we're sitting here talking today and in a greater sense.

01;00;52;03 - 01;01;21;12

Nancy Hollander

Absolutely. And, you know, it's what I tell young lawyers every time I talk to them, which is miracles can happen and never give up a case. I had some others that are similar. Never give up. But don't be afraid to question precedent because it changes. And the only way it changes is through lawyers who have this incredible power to promote change for the good.

01;01;21;14 - 01;01;43;16

Nancy Hollander

And it's it's what we have to do all the time. Things can be dark. And we had some dark years with Mohamedou when Terry and I would go to visit him, just because we needed to make sure he was okay and he wasn't okay, he was depressed. We were depressed. We didn't know that he would ever get out.

01;01;43;16 - 01;02;19;11

Nancy Hollander

When that book came out, we had no way of knowing that he would ever be released and even up to the very last minute until that plane touched down in Mauritania, anything could have gone wrong. The State Department said if his family announces that he's getting out, it's all off. And then when he was there and it was all over the Mauritanian press and we found out about it, and I called the State Department and they said, well, you can't announce it until we're wheels up out of Mauritania and airspace.

01;02;19;11 - 01;02;45;04

Nancy Hollander

They said, give us two days. And I said, no, I mean, he's out and it's it's already out there. And we'll give you 15 minutes. And then we're going to publicize this because at that point there was not anything they could do. He was on the ground in Mauritania. And the first few minutes of that, or in the last moments of the movie, you can see that his first, literally first few minutes.

01;02;45;07 - 01;03;08;12

Jonathan Hafetz

And the celebration, the welcoming and that's, amazing. I think it's worth pointing out to him when you were free and they couldn't detain. But the U.S. government in the shadow of Guantanamo followed you. I mean, it follows you, Nick, emotionally. Well, forever. But practically speaking, your travel was restricted. I mean, you weren't free in the normal sense when you're released from custody, right, Mohamedou?

01;03;08;15 - 01;03;51;28

Mohamedou Ould

Absolutely not. Free. And Nancy and I went through hell, and it was at times very emotional when I was released, I was not allowed to leave Mauritania. Never. Turns out the U.S. ask them never, ever to allow me to leave Mauritania or to have a passport. And with the new president, when these two three years of fighting, peacefully fighting, and when the new president Vaswani took over, he allows me to have my passport and the U.S. embassy in walks through the Western embassies that they consider me a bad, quote unquote, bad guy.

01;03;52;00 - 01;04;19;14

Mohamedou Ould

This was published by Der Spiegel. This email was leaked. So they did not want me ever to leave my life ever to be a person until the day I die. But I'm not like, I'm not challenging anyone. I'm not showing the middle finger to anyone. All I want to say today that I am a free man and I'm in Amsterdam, arguably the most liberal city in the world, and I'm traveling.

01;04;19;14 - 01;04;45;22

Mohamedou Ould

I was the U.K., I was invited by the Parliament more than once, and I had a speech at the UK Parliament, the European Parliament, European Parliament, inviting me next month and not in September. But I don't have time because I'm meeting Nancy at the same time in Norway. And I was just telling you that this is not a win for me, but a win for people like you who did not trust the government, who did, who did say no.

01;04;45;22 - 01;05;13;28

Mohamedou Ould

We don't always believe that the government acts in good faith because we know history and democracy is invented for the purpose of lawyer like you guys to question the government. And I'm just want to give you a story that happened and Nancy doesn't know about it. I always tell Nancy, after the movie came out, that a lot of people call me and contact me through a social media, and they tell me, oh my God, we saw the movie.

01;05;14;00 - 01;05;38;05

Mohamedou Ould

We are so inspired. We want to study law. And this is a little bit disheartening to me because no one ever told me, oh my God, I want to be kidnaped and be put in prison for 15 years, just like all of them. They opt for Nancy's option and one person who could be listening to your podcast, and I would not tell her name because I would leave it to her to say her name.

01;05;38;07 - 01;06;06;18

Mohamedou Ould

She contacted me after the movie was released, and she told me that you are so inspired to see us from Kazakhstan and that she is going to study law. Okay, that's you know, I got a lot of messages like that a couple of months back, she contacted me, said, I'm in Paris, I studied now, I in Paris. I get this very special scholarship from France for very bright law student.

01;06;06;20 - 01;06;15;18

Mohamedou Ould

Now she's studying in France, two different other people in a part of the world where human rights violation is not very uncommon.

01;06;15;20 - 01;06;21;15

Jonathan Hafetz

It's inspiring to see how you inspired people like that. Your story. That's incredible.

01;06;21;17 - 01;06;24;01

Mohamedou Ould

You mean Nancy story? Of course.

01;06;24;04 - 01;06;42;00

Jonathan Hafetz

I want to ask. Thing about the movie. The movie seem to get a lot of the small details about Guantanamo, right? In addition to capturing the overall power of Mohamedou, story, the small plane that the attorneys had to take. A little nicer than I remember, but no facilities are on board for the close to four hour flight.

01;06;42;02 - 01;07;05;03

Jonathan Hafetz

The military escort who follows you everywhere on the island, the stop at McDonald's that the attorneys would make to bring food for their clients when they met them. How the government took your notes as soon as you left the meeting, you ordered them to be cleared by the Privilege Review Team. How you would have to travel when you're in the United States to the soulless facility in Crystal city to review anything that was classified, and the classification was just excessive.

01;07;05;07 - 01;07;15;20

Jonathan Hafetz

Even the Don't Feed the iguanas t shirt, did they tell it to get no gift shop? So did you work with Kevin McDonald and his team on trying to get these sort of small details about Guantanamo, right, and capture on the screen.

01;07;15;22 - 01;07;43;05

Nancy Hollander

I did work with them and Carrie worked with them also. We had to tell them those things because Mohamedou, of course, didn't know about them. So we talked to them. We gave them transcripts of everything we could, including the hearing, which is almost completely unclassified and that helped. And, I met with Jodie a couple times, and one time she called me and she said, we have a scene where I'm arguing about a case.

01;07;43;05 - 01;08;02;19

Nancy Hollander

It was Boumediene. I'm arguing about a case. Would I have it in front of me? And I said, yes, you would. And you could point to it and cite it and quote it. And she does that in the court. And that's because we talked about it. We spent a lot of time with them at the very beginning.

01;08;02;19 - 01;08;24;24

Nancy Hollander

I went to London and was taped for five hours. We stopped in between and had lunch so that Kevin could ask me lots and lots of questions and then a lot of follow up. So we really helped them. You know, we argued about things they didn't do, everything we thought they should, but they changed the film in some ways.

01;08;24;24 - 01;08;31;06

Nancy Hollander

We watched lots of iterations of the film and said, you know, no, this isn't right. Something like that.

01;08;31;08 - 01;08;50;08

Jonathan Hafetz

One thing where I thought my own view, they took some poetic license with, and I understand it from the idea of telling a story. Was your relationship dancing with Terry? Was played by Shailene Woodley. You are the experienced, tough veteran is all true. I mean, a lot of folks here, but they kind of get that right. But Terry just said it.

01;08;50;08 - 01;09;12;05

Jonathan Hafetz

The contrast the character is this more naive young attorney now, I spent a good deal of time with you both in the case. And you know, my reaction that of Terry, she's younger, but she was plenty tough, plenty experience. So that was one thing that when I watch it said, you know, I get it because it helps tell this other dimension of the story with your relationship to her.

01;09;12;05 - 01;09;13;01

Jonathan Hafetz

But.

01;09;13;03 - 01;09;42;14

Nancy Hollander

Well, it's interesting about Terry at that time, she had already done the Oklahoma City case, and we were in the middle of the Holy Land case. She is a lot like that. However, Terry is now a death penalty lawyer, and at no time would she ever care if her client was innocent or guilty. That wouldn't come up. But she agreed to this for the sake of the movie.

01;09;42;16 - 01;10;09;29

Nancy Hollander

She's the one that the audience identifies with, and she's really two people because Sylvia did quit and we have different opinions of why she quit, but she quit very suddenly. So Terry kind of becomes the person who quits, although she was not willing to have her name put on it if it was said that she quit. So they changed it to a fired her, essentially.

01;10;10;02 - 01;10;31;15

Nancy Hollander

And the one thing that's true about that is that if a lawyer had come to me and said what she says in the movie, I wouldn't have reacted quite the way Jodie did, who I hope mean or that I have, I would have said, you have to reconsider whether you want to be a criminal defense lawyer because you can't.

01;10;31;15 - 01;10;54;05

Nancy Hollander

If you're going to take this position and you're off this case and you think about it, that would really have happened. And then she comes back when the polygraph proves that he's innocent. Of course, that's just not true at all. She was there the whole time. And it was to Terry's credit that she agreed to this for the movie.

01;10;54;07 - 01;11;12;11

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah, I mean, that was what I was saying is she was just a defense lawyer through and through the whole time. All right. Yeah, that's what that's not Terry Duncan. But I understand why. Yeah. You're still making a movie to some extent. And I guess in the end, ultimately it makes the movie, gives it another dimension to the story and attracts more attention and, makes it a more powerful vehicle for telling Mohamedou story.

01;11;12;11 - 01;11;24;01

Jonathan Hafetz

So in the end, you know, I see it. Mohamedou, what was it like to announce to to see yourselves on screen? You both had phenomenal actors playing you, but was it strange?

01;11;24;04 - 01;11;50;27

Nancy Hollander

It was for me, it was strange. And I told Jodie when I first met her, I said, you know, I've been myself in films and documentaries, but nobody's ever played me before. And she said, well, we're even. I've never played a real life person before. She said, I played in The King and I. She said, but that person had been dead for 200 years, and she was nervous about it, and I just found it eerie.

01;11;50;27 - 01;12;02;25

Nancy Hollander

I've gotten accustomed to it, but I found it eerie at the time was weird, and Mohamedou and I went to South Africa for a few days and watched them filming, which was even stranger.

01;12;02;27 - 01;12;25;12

Mohamedou Ould

Yeah, to me, I mean, to everything that Nancy said, I'm happy because I got to be played by a guy who is hot and everybody seeing especially white people that they think that we really look alike. And I said, of course we are brown people. And so the other thing, it was like, again, surreal to meet Nancy on the set, in South Africa.

01;12;25;12 - 01;12;46;01

Mohamedou Ould

And they took me for the first time. Everything was first time. It was the first time ever I flew in, first class. And it was the first time ever I was taken to a, quote unquote fancy restaurant with a guy with a French accent, you know, who does a lecture every time they give us something. I didn't think I have to listen to a lecture.

01;12;46;01 - 01;13;17;13

Mohamedou Ould

And I'm really very hungry, and I want to eat. And that Nancy told me this is very fancy. And he gave us something. I thought, it's for free because they said, courtesy of the chef. Turns out it was not free. It was really very expensive. But I enjoyed the shooting. I enjoyed everything, and I can tell you this because Nancy and I have this unique access to those beautiful people, actors, you know, and I know a lot of people know Jodie Foster, Tahar Rahim and Shailene Woodley, you know, among many others.

01;13;17;17 - 01;13;38;01

Mohamedou Ould

And those people are really very kind hearted and very, very nice. You know, when Nancy was talking about this, she was never been played in a movie. Had she never seen someone playing her? Jodie told us also that she does not like to watch her own movies. And this happened to me. It was very painful for me to watch.

01;13;38;01 - 01;14;04;06

Mohamedou Ould

The movie took me very long time. And there is one thing that happened in the set and I shared it with you, John. I remember when they took us into the plane in a very long row. One of the actors, you know, broke down and he had to excuse himself. He said he cannot play the role anymore. And he quit because it was so intense for him, you know, just not to be able to see, even though he know this is make believe.

01;14;04;08 - 01;14;21;09

Mohamedou Ould

But this shows you already how much pain those people who work it up and who are being kidnaped everywhere, not only in Guantanamo Bay. There are many Guantanamo Bay in the Middle East, many Guantanamo Bay in other parts of the world, and we need to fight all the Guantanamo Bays.

01;14;21;11 - 01;14;43;09

Jonathan Hafetz

Absolutely, Mohamedou. And for you, seeing yourself on screen is another dimension, right? Nancy's playing the lawyer, talking about habeas corpus in the Constitution, but these are just horrific and very personal things that happened to you. And to see them on the movie and to know that millions of other people are seeing them. It's challenging and I'm sure traumatic in its own way, although important because it's part of the story.

01;14;43;11 - 01;15;08;24

Mohamedou Ould

Even though I went through this horrific experience, it's part of my growth and knowing Nancy, knowing you, John, knowing all the team, you know, the people who work with you guys, including the ACLU, including the artists I got to know also in the Netherlands, all of those beautiful people and the beautiful side of America, it was worth all the pain that I had been through.

01;15;08;27 - 01;15;15;02

Mohamedou Ould

Thank you for inviting me, and thank you for really representing the beautiful face of the United States of America.

01;15;15;05 - 01;15;36;16

Jonathan Hafetz

Mohamedou and Nancy. It's been such a pleasure to have you on the podcast. And just to reconnect with you, Nancy, catch up and see you again. And Mohamedou, just to see you. And I mean, just the fact of doing a podcast with you, seeing you on zoom as we record this from your home in the Netherlands, a free man, a world famous author.

01;15;36;18 - 01;15;56;22

Jonathan Hafetz

This is audio, but I'm seeing Mohammed Dumont, who's turning his camera on the zoom and showing me his beautiful apartment and the view outside. It looks like a really nice park or square and knowing, like what you said for Mohamedou about how you had no window in your cell for much of the time. I mean, now to see you in your apartment with this view walking around is just, inspiring.

01;15;56;22 - 01;16;22;01

Jonathan Hafetz

I mean, you're inspiring. So thank you both so much. If you haven't read Muhammad's book, Guantanamo Diary, edited by Larry Sims, I highly recommend it. It is a classic and powerful book, and the film is streaming on Netflix and is a incredibly gripping film with amazing performances that really does a superb job at capturing Guantanamo and also Nancy, you mentioned My Brother's Keeper, the documentary with Mohamedou and his former guards, Steve Wood.

01;16;22;02 - 01;16;26;29

Jonathan Hafetz

Worth seeing as well. So thank you both so much for coming on the podcast.

01;16;27;01 - 01;16;28;18

Nancy Hollander

Thank you for having me on.