Slahi's simulated transfer aboard a boat at Guantánamo

Slahi's simulated transfer aboard a boat at Guantánamo was a staged operation on August 25, 2003, intended to make him believe he had been taken off the island to a place where the rules had changed. Rather than move him to another location, interrogators used blackout goggles, a boat ride, and deceptive conversations to create the impression of a transfer. The episode shows how the interrogation plan made disorientation and false information part of the procedure.

A Transfer Planned as Deception

The original Special Interrogation Plan, signed by Geoffrey Miller on July 1, 2003, proposed hooding Slahi and flying him around Guantánamo Bay by helicopter for one or two hours. The intended effect was to persuade him that he had been moved somewhere beyond the existing rules. According to the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Justice, interrogators later said the helicopter was abandoned because it was difficult to arrange and would involve too many people on the base.

The plan’s substitute kept the appearance of relocation while avoiding an actual departure from the island. On August 25, Slahi was taken from Camp Delta wearing blackout goggles and brought on a boat ride. Other passengers carried out pre-planned deceptive conversations for him to hear, reinforcing the impression that the journey was a transfer rather than a staged operation.

Camp Echo Preparations

The boat episode was connected to preparations for Slahi’s subsequent placement at Camp Echo. The Senate Armed Services Committee reported that the plan called for military personnel in riot gear to remove him from his cell, put him aboard a watercraft, and drive him around before taking him to Camp Echo. There, his cell and interrogation room were contained in a single trailer-like isolation hut, modified to reduce outside stimuli.

The preparations extended beyond the interior. An August 21, 2003, email from a Joint Task Force Guantánamo intelligence specialist to Richard Zuley described sealing the cell to keep light from entering and covering its exterior with a tarp to prevent Slahi from seeing guards. The plan also specified an eyebolt in the floor and speakers in the room. These details placed the simulated journey within a broader effort to control what Slahi could see, hear, and infer about his location.

The Plan and Its Record

The surviving accounts distinguish the proposed helicopter flight from what was actually carried out: the helicopter was dropped, and the boat ride took its place. The record describes the operation as a deliberately staged transfer, not transportation off the island. Its intended deception depended on Slahi being unable to see the route and on hearing conversations arranged in advance.

Because the account is reconstructed through government investigations and committee findings, the event is presented alongside the plan’s instructions and the later explanation for changing its method. The contrast between a proposed flight and a substituted boat ride makes the operation’s purpose clear: to manufacture the belief that Slahi had entered a different place, with different rules, while he remained within the Guantánamo detention system.