Slahi's filing of a habeas corpus petition

Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s filing of a habeas corpus petition turned his demand for an explanation into a formal challenge to his detention. Handwritten in Guantánamo on March 3, 2005, the petition asserted that he had committed no crimes against the United States and had not been charged with any; it asked for his immediate release and offered to address his case at future hearings.

From an unanswered question to a legal claim

The filing followed years of interrogation and imprisonment. In his account, Slahi had pressed interrogators to explain why he was being held, insisting that cooperation could not continue indefinitely while the central question remained unanswered. He framed the issue in ordinary terms: after three years of interrogation and loss of liberty, the government owed him an explanation of the alleged crime.

The petition gave that demand a legal form. Slahi later explained that his lawyers had supplied the phrase “Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus” for what he understood as the plain question of why he was locked up. The shift in language did not change the substance of his challenge: he sought an opportunity to contest his confinement, not merely to provide more information to interrogators.

The handwritten petition

The document was composed in English and identified Slahi as detained at Guantánamo under ISN number 760. Its concise claims and request for a hearing stand in contrast to the prolonged interrogation described elsewhere in the memoir. The petition stated that he had committed no crimes against the United States, noted that the government had not charged him, and asked for immediate release.

The handwritten date, March 3, 2005, anchors the appeal within the broader chronology of his detention. In the summer of that year, Slahi also wrote by hand the 466-page manuscript that became the book. Both acts of writing took place in confinement, but they addressed different audiences and purposes: the petition sought a legal response to detention, while the manuscript recounted his experience for readers.

From prison document to public record

The petition became one of the few early samples of Slahi’s written voice to circulate outside the prison. A short version, also dated March 3, 2005, appeared among government documents released after litigation under the Freedom of Information Act. It made the claim legible in Slahi’s own words without resolving the dispute over why he remained detained.

His larger manuscript remained inaccessible to his attorneys for years. It was classified SECRET and NOFORN and held in a secure facility; lawyers pursued its release through litigation and negotiation for more than six years. The contrast matters to the petition’s history: Slahi could put a legal claim on paper, yet access to his fuller account was still controlled by the government holding him.

Documentary context and limits

The memoir’s editors describe the petition alongside other public records and investigations concerning Slahi’s interrogation. Military interrogators’ daily memoranda recorded both what was said in sessions and how information was obtained. Those records remained classified, but later government reviews summarized the special interrogation and found that its documented course closely matched Slahi’s account. This wider record provides context for the circumstances in which he sought legal recourse; it does not, by itself, establish the outcome of his petition.

The petition’s significance therefore lies both in its legal request and in the precise question beneath it. After years in custody, Slahi asked the government to identify the basis for holding him and to allow him to challenge that basis. The document preserved that demand in his handwriting even while the manuscript that elaborated his account remained under censorship.