Duisburg

Duisburg was both the setting for a substantial part of Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s adult life and the place where a brief act of hospitality later acquired far-reaching significance in the U.S. government’s case against him. He studied electrical engineering, lived and worked there for much of the 1990s, and hosted Ramzi bin al-Shibh and two other men for a single night. The government later treated his advice about Afghanistan as evidence of recruitment; the record described in his habeas proceedings established a narrower encounter.

Study and family life

Slahi arrived in Germany in 1988 on a scholarship from the Carl Duisberg Society, having become the first member of his family to attend university and the first to travel by airplane. His family had moved to Nouakchott as he was finishing primary school, and his father, a camel trader, died not long afterward. In Duisburg, Slahi completed a degree in electrical engineering. His young Mauritanian wife joined him, and the couple lived and worked in the city for most of the 1990s, carrying forward the family’s hopes that his education would help support them.

Duisburg was also where Slahi’s earlier experiences in Afghanistan intersected with his later life in Germany. He remained in contact with some companions from that period, including men who maintained ties to al-Qaeda. He was also related to Mahfouz Ould al-Walid, known as Abu Hafs al-Mauritani, a member of al-Qaeda’s Shura Council and one of Osama bin Laden’s senior theological advisers. The two were distant cousins and brothers-in-law through their marriages to sisters. While Slahi lived in Germany, they spoke occasionally by telephone; on two occasions, Slahi helped transfer $4,000 to Abu Hafs’s family in Mauritania around Ramadan.

The overnight visit

In October 1999, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and two friends reached Slahi in Duisburg after meeting a stranger on a train in Germany. The men had spoken about jihad and their wish to travel to Chechnya to fight the Russians. According to the account later attributed to bin al-Shibh, Slahi put the three up for one night and discussed the difficulty of reaching Chechnya, suggesting Afghanistan as a route where they could train before continuing. The surviving account thus connects the encounter to the men’s stated destination and the earlier conflict they hoped to join; it does not say that Slahi sent them to take part in a plot against the United States.

That distinction became consequential after bin al-Shibh was captured in 2002 and identified Slahi as the man he had visited in Duisburg. The U.S. government argued in Slahi’s habeas proceedings that recommending training in Afghanistan amounted to serving as an al-Qaeda recruiter. It did not argue that Slahi had persuaded the men to join Osama bin Laden’s plot. Judge James Robertson found that the record showed lodging for one night and a discussion of jihad and Afghanistan, not more. The same visit could therefore be narrated as a small act of assistance between acquaintances or recast as evidence of a larger organizational role.

A domestic setting turned into evidence

Duisburg’s significance lies in that contrast between the ordinary particulars of Slahi’s life there and the security meaning later assigned to them. The city was where he completed his education, shared a household with his wife, and maintained personal and family connections. It was also the location of the overnight meeting on which a major allegation rested. In the account of the habeas case, the difference between offering lodging and recruiting for al-Qaeda turns not on a second documented action, but on how the conversation about Afghanistan was interpreted.