Sylvia Royce

Sylvia Royce is an attorney on Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s pro bono legal team whose connection to Guantánamo Diary is recorded through two moments: the opportunity to meet Slahi and a later letter in which he pointed to his book as an account of his interrogations that she could not access. The evidence establishes her professional relationship to him but offers little detail about her individual legal work or private life.

Identity and Introduction

Royce was part of Slahi’s pro bono legal team, alongside attorney Nancy Hollander. In the summer and early fall of 2005, Slahi began writing his manuscript in the single-cell segregation hut at Camp Echo, Guantánamo. He wrote in installments, starting not long after he was finally allowed to meet with Hollander and Royce. The meeting marks the documented point at which their relationship enters the book’s account; the available material does not describe what was discussed.

The Letter and the Manuscript

On November 9, 2006, Slahi wrote Royce a letter in English. She had asked him to write down everything he had told interrogators. He responded that the task was difficult to encompass because the interrogations had continued for years, then explained that he had already provided her nearly everything in his book. The manuscript, in his view, offered a substantially fuller account than a separate response could easily reproduce.

Access and Censorship

Slahi also told Royce that the government was denying her access to the book. The obstacle was therefore not simply the scale of the story he had been asked to recount: the account he considered most complete was unavailable to his attorney. His letter makes the manuscript both a record of his experience and a point of tension in his communication with counsel, who could not consult it as he wished.

Evidentiary Limits

The record identifies Royce as a member of Slahi’s legal team, a participant in the meeting preceding his writing, and the recipient of his 2006 letter. It does not establish the details of her legal arguments, her response to the letter, or the extent of her subsequent access to the manuscript. Her significance here lies in the contrast Slahi drew between the comprehensive account he had written and the barriers preventing his lawyer from reading it.