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This is an updating resource of news articles on Finland and Sweden's path to potential membership of NATO.

The articles are sorted by publication date, with the most recent at the top. Feel free to recommend articles in the comments.

The thread title contains the date of the latest update to the main thread, for ease of use.

Articles:

NATO nations sign accession protocols for Sweden, Finland

The thirty NATO allies signed off on the accession protocols for Sweden and Finland on Tuesday, sending the membership bids of the two nations to the alliance capitals for legislative approvals — and possible political trouble in Turkey.

AP – Raf Casert – 5th July 2022

NATO summit: Sweden, Finland boost unity against Putin

NATO's ambitions are growing. Sweden and Finland are set to join and the alliance is strengthening its eastern flank with more troops. This is the right approach against Vladimir Putin, says Bernd Riegert.

DW – Bernd Riegert – 29th June 2022

Turkey says summit is not deadline for talks on Finland and Sweden's NATO bids

Discussions between Turkey, Finland and Sweden about the Nordic countries' NATO membership will continue and an alliance summit in Madrid next week is not a deadline, Turkey said after talks in Brussels on Monday.

Finland and Sweden applied for NATO membership in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But the bids have faced opposition from Turkey, which has been angered by what it says is Helsinki and Stockholm's support for Kurdish militants and arms embargoes on Ankara.

Reuters – 20th June 2022

Former Kurdish rebel has key role in Sweden’s NATO bid

When Turkey’s president rails against “terrorists” in the Swedish Parliament, Amineh Kakabaveh is convinced he is talking about her.

The former Kurdish rebel fighter turned Swedish lawmaker has emerged as a central figure in the drama surrounding Sweden and Finland’s historic bid to join NATO. Turkey opposes NATO membership for the two Nordic countries, accusing them of harboring Kurdish militants.

AP – Karl Ritter – 14th June 2022

Turkey threatens year’s delay to Swedish and Finnish entry to NATO

Turkey has said it is willing to delay Swedish and Finnish membership of NATO for more than a year unless it receives satisfactory assurances that the two Nordic countries are willing to address support for Kurdish groups it regards as terrorist organisations.

The Guardian – Patrick Wintour – 14th June 2022

Sweden to seek constructive progress with Turkey over NATO bid

Sweden will look to make constructive progress in talks with Turkey on Ankara's objections over the Nordic country's application to join the NATO defensive alliance, Foreign Minister Ann Linde said on Friday.

Reuters – 10th June 2022

Finland and Sweden prepare for large NATO naval drill, amid Turkish concerns

Finland and Sweden are preparing for an enlarged NATO naval exercise in the Baltic Sea on Sunday, amid Turkish concerns over their membership.

NATO's fortnight-long 'Baltops 22' is being hosted this year by Sweden, with the Finnish Navy and Air force also taking part.

Euronews – Philip Andrew Churm – 4th June 2022

Sweden's NATO bid: 'We are not naive,' defense minister tells DW

Russia's invasion of Ukraine "fundamentally" changed the way Swedes thought about joining the NATO military alliance, Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist told DW.

DW – Rebecca Staudenmaier – 1st June 2022

Finnish foreign minister optimistic that 'sooner or later' Finland and Sweden will be NATO members

Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto expressed optimism that "sooner or later, Finland and Sweden will be members of NATO" and said discussions with the Turkish government would continue as Ankara threatens to block the two nations from joining the defensive alliance.

CNN – Jennifer Hansler – 27th May 2022

Finland, Sweden to send teams to Turkey to discuss NATO bids, Haavisto says

Finland and Sweden will send delegations to Ankara on Wednesday to try to resolve Turkish opposition to their applications for membership of the NATO military alliance, Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said on Tuesday.

Reuters – 24th May 2022

Ukraine war: US fully backs Sweden and Finland Nato bids, Biden says

Sweden and Finland have the "full, total and complete backing" of the US in their decision to apply for Nato membership, President Joe Biden says.

Both countries submitted their applications to be part of the Western defence alliance this week, marking a major shift in European geopolitics.

To join the alliance, the two nations need the support of all 30 Nato member states.

But the move by the Nordic nations has been opposed by Turkey.

BBC News – 20th May 2022

Why some young Swedes remain uneasy about joining NATO

While the majority of Swedes are in favor of joining NATO, there are others who even took to the streets in protest. They warn the decision is rushed and that Sweden should better stick with its tradition of neutrality.

DW – Priyanka Shankar – 18th May 2022

Why has Erdoğan doubled down on threat to veto Nordic NATO bids?

After initial hesitation about the seriousness of Turkey’s objections, its president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has doubled down on his threat to veto Finland’s and Sweden’s applications for membership of NATO, saying there is no point in either country sending delegations to Ankara to persuade him otherwise.

The Guardian – Patrick Wintour – 18th May 2022

Finland and Sweden may join NATO – but even they can’t guarantee that will make them safer

For a long time, the Nordic countries saw themselves as sleekly humanitarian, peace-keeping powers. To an unusual degree, the national identities of Sweden and Finland are bound up with their foreign policy: Swedes identify with a centuries-old tradition of neutrality, whereas Finns point to their talent for realpolitik, making the best of their volatile geography, which includes an 830-mile border with Russia. As both countries now formally submit their applications to join the North Atlantic alliance, each of them will forgo this deviation from the European norm. Finland in particular now seems poised to adopt a more standard-issue foreign policy. But at what price?

The Guardian – Thomas Meaney – 18th May 2022

Finland and Sweden’s historic NATO bids, explained

Finland and Sweden are seeking membership to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a historic shift for two traditionally non-aligned countries and a major expansion of the Western alliance as war continues in Europe.

Vox – Jen Kirby – 17th May 2022

Finland's Parliament likely to vote on NATO application on Tuesday

President Sauli Niinisto and the government decided officially on Sunday that Finland would apply for membership but the decision is pending Parliament's approval, which is expected with an overwhelming majority.

Debate in the legislature began on Monday and the first session finished more than 14 hours later, after midnight, after members gave 212 addresses on the topic, the vast majority in favour of joining.

Reuters – 17th May 2022

Finland formally confirms intention to join NATO

“Finland is applying for NATO membership,” said the country’s president, Sauli Niinistö, at a press conference. “A protected Finland is being born as part of a stable, strong and responsible Nordic region. We gain security and we also share it. It’s good to keep in mind that security isn’t a zero-sum game.”

The Guardian – Jon Henley – 15th May 2022

Turkey won't block Finland and Sweden joining NATO, Denmark says

Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod believes the NATO alliance will prove united on the potential accession of Finland and Sweden, despite signals from Turkey suggesting Ankara is not ready to support the historic expansion.

Newsweek – David Brennan – 14th May 2022

Opinion: In keeping with its 1939 tradition, Finland is saying 'nyet' to Vladimir Putin

Finland's membership in NATO would signal the end of over 70 years of Moscow's most enduring policy. This is a humiliation for Vladimir Putin, writes DW's Konstantin Eggert.

DW – Konstantin Eggert – 13th May 2022

NATO: New challenges for the alliance as Finland and Sweden inch closer to membership?

Finland has announced its decision to join NATO as quickly as possible, Sweden is expected to follow suit shortly. What does this mean for the alliance?

DW – Priyanka Shankar – 12th May 2022

Sweden plans to send NATO application next week, Expressen daily says

Sweden's government plans to submit an application to join NATO next week, following neighbour Finland in re-writing its post-World War Two security policy in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, daily Expressen said on Thursday.

Reuters – 12th May 2022

Finland must apply for NATO membership "without delay", Finnish leaders say

Finland must apply to join the NATO military alliance "without delay", Finnish President Sauli Niinisto and Prime Minister Sanna Marin said on Thursday, a major policy shift triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Reuters – Anne Kauranen & Essi Lehto – 12th May 2022

Ukraine conflict: What is NATO and will Finland and Sweden join?

Boris Johnson has said the UK would support Sweden and Finland if they came under attack. Both countries are considering whether to join NATO, with a decision expected shortly.

BBC News – 11th May 2022

Is NATO's Nordic expansion a threat or boost to Europe?

Finland and Sweden, two neutral Nordic countries, are so alarmed by Russia's invasion of Ukraine that they are both now seriously considering joining NATO, as early as this summer.

BBC News – Frank Gardner – 9th May 2022

Scandinavian allies support Finnish, Swedish NATO bids

The Scandinavian members of NATO have given their full backing to the prospect of Finland and Sweden joining the intergovernmental military alliance.

"This is your decision and your decision alone. But be assured: If you decide to join, you have the full support from Denmark," Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on the sidelines of a summit between the five Scandinavian countries and India on Wednesday.

DW – 5th May 2022

Sweden’s ruling Social Democrats divided on decision to join NATO

The first signs of a backlash to a possible Swedish application to join NATO have emerged within the ruling Social Democrats, at the start of a critical month in which Sweden and neighbouring Finland are expected to move rapidly towards a decision.

The Guardian – Patrick Wintour – 4th May 2022

The NATO accession Sweden never saw coming

On May 17, President Sauli Niinisto of Finland is scheduled to arrive in Sweden. He’ll meet with King Carl XVI Gustaf and the Swedish government before leaving the next day. And sometime during his visit, Sweden and Finland are expected to announce they’re both applying for membership of NATO. Finland has—remarkably—taken the lead, and Sweden is likely to follow, simply because if Finland joins there’s really no reason to not to do the same. Sweden is, in fact, NATO’s luckiest-ever joiner, a country swept into the alliance without having to lobby for membership and without its government even expressing a desire to join.

Foreign Policy – Elisabeth Braw – 29th April 2022

Putin is pushing Finland and Sweden into NATO’s arms

Mr. Rasmussen is a former secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and a former prime minister of Denmark.

When announcing Russia’s imminent invasion of Ukraine back in February, President Vladimir Putin mentioned NATO 40 times. It was clear he wanted to present NATO as the devil — but it wasn’t always like that.

New York Times – Anders Fogh Rasmussen – 25th April 2022

Going Nordic: What NATO membership would mean for Finland and Sweden

As they watch Russia unleash total war against a European neighbor, Sweden and Finland seem to agree: It’s finally time to join NATO.

With public opinion turning strongly in favor, both countries are inching closer toward formally joining the Alliance. Just this week, their prime ministers publicly telegraphed their strong support for such a move, though Finland appears more certain than Sweden and likely to move first.

But what would that look like? For answers we reached out to Leo Michel, a nonresident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Center’s Transatlantic Security Initiative and the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, who previously served as director of NATO policy at the Pentagon. Check out his responses to our questions below.

Atlantic Council – 15th April 2022

Will Finland and Sweden join NATO?

The war in Ukraine may bring NATO new members. Finland and Sweden are closer than ever to ditching their neutrality and applying to join. Bernd Riegert reports from Brussels.

DW – Bernd Riegert – 14th April 2022

Sweden’s decision to join NATO isn’t just about security

Will Sweden join Nato? The country looks set to join Finland in applying for membership, but the debate in Stockholm is far from straightforward.

New Statesman – Megan Gibson – 14th April 2022

Finland is closer than ever to joining NATO

Since 1945, Finland has sought cordial relations with its vast Russian neighbor. But Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine has emboldened champions of Finnish NATO membership — and made things harder for left-wing critics of the military alliance.

Jacobin – Tatu Ahponen – 13th April 2022

Finland and Sweden belong in NATO

Though fundamentally geared toward defense, NATO looms as a mortal threat to Russia in President Vladimir Putin’s geopolitical imagination. Mr. Putin has grown increasingly agitated with NATO’s eastward expansion since the Cold War’s end three decades ago, which has brought most of Europe under the alliance’s mutual security guarantee. Mr. Putin cited the need to prevent NATO from reaching Russia’s borders via the inclusion of Ukraine as one of his reasons to invade that neighbor on Feb. 24.

Washington Post – Editorial – 13th April 2022

In Sweden and Finland, even the skeptics are coming round to NATO bids

In Sweden, support for joining NATO among the population as a whole has risen from around 35 percent to 46 percent over the past month. In Finland, it has spiked to over 60 percent.

Politico – Charlie Duxbury – 8th April 2022

Putin’s strategic error

When Vladimir Putin began laying the groundwork for his invasion of Ukraine, he pointed to what he regards as the existential threat posed by the West encroaching farther into the post-Soviet space. Nearly two weeks into Putin’s devastating and costly invasion, that fear has turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy: The once-remote possibility of Ukraine joining the European Union and NATO now seems more plausible, and even in historically neutral countries such as Finland and Sweden (both of which are already EU members), public support for joining NATO has surged to record levels.

The Atlantic – Yasmeen Serhan – 9th March 2022

Swedish PM rejects opposition calls to consider joining NATO

Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson on Tuesday rejected opposition calls to consider joining NATO following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, saying an application now would destabilize security in Europe.

Reuters – 8th March 2022

Finland, Sweden brush off Moscow’s warning on joining NATO

Finland and Sweden have brushed off warnings from neighboring Russia that their possible joining of NATO would trigger “serious military-political consequences” from Moscow for the two countries.

AP – Jari Tanner – 26th February 2022

Finland and Sweden wait for the Baltic states

The Baltic States used to be a problem for Russia. Now they are a headache for their Nordic neighbors, Finland and Sweden. Likely membership of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in NATO is forcing Finland and Sweden to reconsider their commitment to military nonalignment. Traditionalists in Helsinki and Stockholm do not like it a bit.

The Baltic enthusiasm for NATO and the Finnish-Swedish distaste for the organization stem from the same source: a refusal to believe that NATO has changed in any meaningful way. The Baltic states see it as directed against Russia and want to join it for that reason. The Finns and Swedes share the perception and reach the opposite conclusion: They want to hear nothing about membership.

New York Times – Risto E J Penttila – 25th January 2022

Russian threats against Ukraine could push Finland and Sweden toward NATO

Russian military threats against Ukraine and Vladimir Putin’s unpredictability are forcing Sweden and Finland to reconsider their policy of non-alignment toward NATO. If admitted, each would enhance security in NATO’s northeastern flank and put Russia on notice. NATO’s open door policy allows nation-states to initiate membership plans if they meet guidelines delineated in Article X of the North Atlantic Charter. Finland and Sweden are ideal NATO candidates.

The Hill – Chris J Dolan – 19th January 2022

Finland not negotiating about NATO membership, foreign minister says

Finland has no plans at present to join NATO, its foreign minister Pekka Haavisto said on Friday, amid heightened security tensions between Finland’s giant neighbour Russia and Ukraine.

“Finland does not discuss with NATO joining it, nor does Finland have such a project upcoming … Finland’s security policy remains unchanged,” Haavisto told reporters at a teleconference following a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in France.

Euronews – 15th January 2022

The hem and haw of Sweden’s relationship with NATO

To date, Sweden has looked at whether or not it joins NATO as a matter of identity and image rather than an existential security issue. After the end of World War II, Sweden chose to continue its policy of neutrality, which had served it well in both world wars and continued to do so during the Cold War. At the same time, it is a known fact that Sweden collaborated with Germany in World War II and has cooperated with NATO since the establishment of the Alliance. The essence and meaning of this cooperation have changed and it has now become a decisive factor in ensuring Sweden’s national security. There is increasing talk about joining the Alliance. The topic that has long been a taboo has entered the programmes of political parties.

ICDS – Riina Kaljurand – 22nd April 2019

I have never been in the military, nor wanted to. I assume a great degree of hardship is required in military life, but I wonder what everyone thinks of the exaggerated, highly theatrical shouting and demeaning language used on recruits. Does that actually make someone a more apt soldier? Does that really prepare them for difficult/tough/combat situations?

By Bastian Berbner and John Goetz, published 1 September, 2021

The man who called himself "Mister X" in Guantánamo wore a balaclava and mirrored sunglasses when he tortured. The person he was torturing was not supposed to see his face. Now, 17 years later, Mister X is standing at a potter's wheel in his garage in Somewhere, America. A bald man with a greying beard, tattooed on the back of his neck. His hands, big and strong, mould a grey-brown lump of clay. The pot won't turn out very nice, you can already tell. He says that's the way it is with his art, he's more attracted to ugliness.

Mister X thought long and hard about whether he wanted to receive journalists and talk about what happened back then. It would be the first time that a Guantánamo torturer has spoken publicly about what he did. The meeting on this day in October 2020 was preceded by numerous emails. Now, finally, we are with him. An interview of several hours is already behind us, in which Mister X told us about his cruel work. We told him that the man he maltreated at that time would also like to talk to him. Mister X replied that on the one hand he had longed for such a conversation for 17 years - on the other hand he had dreaded it for 17 years. He asked for half an hour to think it over. He said he could think well while making pottery.

The man who would like to talk to him is called Mohamedou Ould Slahi. In the summer of 2003, he was considered the most important prisoner in the Guantánamo Bay camp. Of the almost 800 prisoners there, according to all that is known, no one was tortured as severely as he was.

There are events that determine a biography. Even if they do not last that long in terms of lifespan, in this case barely eight weeks, they unfold a power that makes everything before fade into oblivion and captivates everything after.

Back then, in the summer of 2003, Mister X was in his mid-thirties and an interrogator in the American army. He was part of the so-called Special Projects Team whose task was to break Slahi. The detainee had so far remained stubbornly silent, but the intelligence services were convinced that he possessed important information. Perhaps even information that could prevent the next major attack or lead to Osama bin Laden, who was then the world's most wanted terrorist: the leader of Al-Qaeda, the main perpetrator of the attacks of 11 September 2001.

The team's mission was to defeat evil. To achieve this, it opposed him with another evil.

Mister X always tortured at night. With each night that Slahi's silence lasted, he tried a new cruelty. He says torture is ultimately a creative process. Listening to Mister X describe what he did can leave you breathless, and sometimes Mister X seems to feel that way himself as he tells the story. Then he shakes his head. Pauses. Runs his hand through his beard. Fights back tears. He says, "Man, I can't believe this myself."

The way he speaks, you don't get the impression that it was all so long ago. In fact, it's not over at all. Mister X says there is hardly a day when he does not think about Slahi or when he does not haunt his dreams. Slahi was the case of his life, in the worst sense of the word.

There was a moment back then that not only burned itself into his memory, it also poisoned his soul, Mister X says. That night he went into the interrogation room where Slahi, small and emaciated, sat in his orange jumpsuit on a chair, chained to an eyelet in the floor. Mister X, tall and muscular, had thought of something new again. This time he pretended to go berserk. He screamed wildly, hurled chairs across the room, slammed his fist against the wall and threw papers in Slahi's face. Slahi was shaking all over.

Mister X says the reason he never got rid of that moment was not that he saw fear in Slahi's eyes, but that he, Mister X, enjoyed seeing that fear. Seeing the trembling Slahi, he says, felt like an orgasm.

Mohamedou Slahi is 50 years old today. In December 2020, two months after our visit to Mister X, he is standing on the Atlantic beach. In front of him the waves break on the Mauritanian coast, not far behind him begins the endless expanse of the Sahara. Slahi wears a Mauritanian robe and a turban, both in the bright blue of the sky above him. With narrowed eyes, he looks out to sea and says that if he were to sail off here on a steady westerly course, he would arrive where he was held for 14 years, at the south-eastern tip of Cuba.

Slahi has been free again for five years. But like Mister X, he too cannot shake off his time in Guantánamo. He now lives again in Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania, on the edge of the desert, the place where the USA had him kidnapped a few weeks after 11 September 2001. Unlike then, he is now a celebrity. He is approached on the street, he zooms out of his house into universities and onto podiums around the world to denounce human rights abuses by the United States. He says that when he closes his eyes at night and sleep comes, sometimes the masked man comes again.

When one of the authors of this article first visited him in 2017, Slahi expressed a wish - he would like to find his torturers. At the time, he had already written a book about his time in Guantánamo. In the last sentence, he had invited the people who had tortured him to have tea with him: "My house is open."

The trauma of 11 September 2001

At that first meeting and again now, in December 2020, he says that during the torture period in Guantánamo he felt one thing above all: Hate. Again and again, he imagined the cruel way in which he would kill Mister X. He said that he had to kill him, his family and everyone else. Him, his family and everyone who meant something to him. But then, in the solitude of his cell, while thinking, praying and writing, he realised that revenge was not the answer. So he decided to try something else: Forgiveness.

In the silence of his cell, he forced himself to think that this big, strong man, Mister X, was in fact a small, weak child. A child to whom he, Mohamedou Slahi, patted his head and said: What you did is bad, but I forgive you. The process of re-educating himself took several years. But at some point, still sitting in his cell in Guantánamo, he had managed to convince himself so much of the sincerity of this thought that he really felt the need to want to forgive.

When Slahi expressed a desire to speak to Mister X, he said he hoped it would bring peace to his still troubled soul. In the best case scenario, he could replace the old, painful memories of that time with new, good memories.

Thus began our search for Mister X.

How must one imagine a man torturing another? In American files, for example in a Senate investigation report, there is a list of what Mister X did. They are descriptions of the crudest psychological and sometimes physical violence.

When you meet him, something strange happens: you don't connect the image that all the reports have created in your head with the man sitting in front of you. We know for sure that he is Mister X. Former colleagues of his have confirmed his identity to us. But the Mister X we meet is: a subtle art lover. An educated man interested in history. All in all, a pretty nice guy. After spending several days with him, one cannot escape the impression that he is apparently also a very empathetic person.

Mister X tells us that he occasionally invites homeless people to the restaurant, also that it happens that he cries in front of the TV when he sees reports from disaster areas. It is precisely because he can empathise so well that he has been so good as an interrogator, as a torturer. You have to put yourself in the other person's shoes. What causes him even greater pain? What could make him feel even more insecure? Where is his weak point? But precisely because of empathy, he says, he was also broken by what he had done at the time.

Shortly after he left Guantánamo in the winter of 2003, Mister X began to drink. It was not unusual for him to drink three bottles of red wine a night. He spent more and more time in bed and spoke less and less with his wife and children. He hardly found any sleep any more. He toyed with the idea of killing himself, he says. A doctor diagnosed him with severe post-traumatic stress disorder. The torturer, of all people, had suffered the kind of trauma one would expect to find in his victim.

There are many studies on the psychological suffering of torture victims. War refugees from Syria, refugees who were mistreated in Libyan camps, Uighur prisoners from China - in such people, depression, addictions, concentration problems, sleeping problems and suicidal thoughts are increasingly observed.

Mister X also suffered from all these symptoms.

One could see the distraught Mister X as the personification of the trauma that has gripped the entire United States since 11 September 2001. After that primal experience, the country that wanted to defend the values of the West in the fight against terror betrayed precisely those values. Rule of law. Justice. Democracy. And since that primordial experience, the country has been ravaged more than ever by an omnipresent violence perpetrated by broken people. Spree killings, assassinations, hate crimes. Maybe the whole US has some kind of post-traumatic stress syndrome?

For 17 years, Mister X says, he has been working through the guilt he has brought upon himself. He has taken medication, undergone therapy and looked for a new job. For 17 years he has been trying to make up for his mistake. A few things have helped him. A little. But not really. Maybe also because he had secretly known all these years that in order to really come clean with himself, he would have to do one thing urgently. "The decent thing to do would be to tell Slahi to his face that I regret what I did to him. That it was wrong."

In that sense, Slahi's offer to talk to us reporters is a gift. An opportunity to draw a line under the matter. But there's a thought that's been troubling Mister X and making it difficult for him to accept the offer.

Mister X still thinks Mohamedou Slahi is a terrorist. And for one of the most brilliant in recent history. A charismatic. A manipulator. A gifted communicator who already spoke four languages, Arabic, French, German and English, and taught himself a fifth, Spanish, in Guantánamo.

Slahi was probably the smartest person he had ever met, Mister X says. So smart that Slahi managed to fool his interrogators, just as he now manages to make millions of people around the world believe he is innocent. Mister X says he knows this person's psyche better than that of his own wife. For weeks he did nothing but put himself in this man's shoes and one thing was clear: Slahi was a brilliant liar.

He looks his tormentor in the face

In 2010, a US federal judge ruled that Slahi must be released because the US government's alleged evidence against him was just that, not evidence: Evidence. The government appeals.

In 2015, the book Slahi wrote in prison is published: Guantánamo Diary. It is extensively redacted, but the message is clear: the US tortured an innocent man. The book becomes a bestseller.

In 2016, Slahi is released, after 14 years without charges. In Mauritania, he is received like a hero.

In 2019, it is announced that Guantánamo Diary will be made into a film. Jodie Foster and Benedict Cumberbatch will star, and Oscar-winner Kevin Macdonald will direct.

In 2020, the Guardian's website will publish the trailer for a documentary in which one of Slahi's guards travels to Mauritania and former enemies become friends.

Apparent friends, says Mister X. He doesn't buy any of this "forgiveness stuff" from Slahi. The film scenes - the walk in the Sahara sand, Slahi laughing and helping his guard into a Mauritanian robe - , Slahi has really staged all that masterfully. Slahi who generously forgives, the decent David who rises above the corrupt Goliath - the narrative of a hero.

That is what makes Mister X hesitate for so long: Slahi, he fears, could also use him for his production. He could show the whole world: Look, now not only an insignificant guard apologises, but also my torturer, and I forgive him too! Slahi would become an even greater hero.

Is Mister X's urge to face his victim stronger than his fear of being instrumentalised?

Mister X has made a small, ugly potty. It must now dry. He puts it aside, wipes his hands on a towel and looks serious. He is silent for a long time and then says, "I'm going through with this now. Oh God."

The picture jerks, the sound wobbles, and for a brief moment hope is written on Mister X's face that technology will save him from his courage. Then the face he knows so well appears before him on the computer screen - narrow as ever, but aged. The man on the screen, unlike Slahi in 2003, has hardly any hair left. And Slahi now wears glasses, with black rims.

It is late in Mauritania, almost midnight, but Mohamedou Slahi has stayed awake. He also has a visit from a member of our team. By phone, we have been keeping Slahi updated from the US for the past few hours: There is a delay; Mister X needs a little more time.

Now a picture is also building up on the monitor in Mauritania. The greying beard, the bald head, the tattoos on the back of his neck.

Mohamedou Slahi looks his tormentor in the face. No mask, no sunglasses.

Mister X: Mister Slahi. How are you doing?

Mohamedou Slahi: How are you, sir?

Mister X: Not bad, and you?

Mohamedou Slahi: I am very well.

Mister X: That's good.

Mohamedou Slahi: Thank you for asking.

Mister X: Yes, sir. I was extremely hesitant to make this call. But let me explain a few things to you.

The first time Mister X saw him was on 22 May 2003. Mister X was standing in an observation room in Guantánamo, looking through a pane of glass that was a mirror from the other side. There, in the interrogation room, Slahi was being questioned by two FBI agents. For half a year they had spoken to him almost every day - without the slightest success. In a few days, it had already been decided, the military would take over, Mister X and his colleagues.

There was a table in the middle of the room, on one side the agents, on the other Slahi. The FBI had brought cakes. One of them, blond and tall, obviously the boss, was leafing through a Koran and saying something about a passage. Then Slahi stood up. He wore no handcuffs, no chains. He walked around the table, took the Koran from the agent's hand and said, no, no, he got it wrong, he had to see it this way and that way. In the end, Mister X watched as the agents hugged Slahi like a friend. "I couldn't believe it," he says.

The FBI agent who leafed through the Koran is Rob Zydlow. We spoke to him as well. He lives in California, he retired a few months ago. He thinks failure is a harsh word. But, yes, in Slahi's case, his plan didn't work. He tried the nice way, but no matter whether he brought home-made cakes, as he did that day, or burgers from McDonald's, whether he watched animal documentaries with Slahi or let him teach him Arabic, Slahi just didn't talk. He would always just say, "I'm innocent."

Slahi, on the other hand, says today that the FBI cake tasted good, that he liked the documentary about the Australian desert best, and that Rob Zydlow's attempt to learn Arabic was simply ridiculous. It was true that the FBI people had been reasonably nice to him for months, but he did not owe those agents any answers. On the other hand, they owed him answers. Why had the US had him kidnapped?

Slahi did not know that on that day, behind the glass, the man he would meet a little later as Mister X was watching. He did not know that in the Pentagon a document was just being passed from one office to the next, signature by signature, all the way to Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, giving examples of what methods this man could use to get the prisoner Mohamedou Slahi to talk. It was a paper that provided a framework, but still left the torture team plenty of room to come up with their own ideas.

Rob Zydlow says he sensed a real hunting fever in the army people who took over.

Mister X says he went to the army shop and bought a bluesuit. Slahi was a man-catcher, as his dealings with the FBI agents proved. So, that was the logic, Slahi would now not be dealing with a human being, but with a figure from a horror film.

"What we did to you was wrong".

In high school, Mister X was in the drama club. Even today he plays Dungeons & Dragons, a board game with elves, orcs and dragons, he reads comics and loves science fiction. While some of his colleagues were boring in their interrogation methods back then - question, question, question - he really immersed himself in the roles.

On the evening of 8 July 2003, Mister X put on his overalls, black military boots, black gloves and a black balaclava, along with mirrored sunglasses. He had Slahi brought into the interrogation room and hooked to the eyelet in the floor, but the chain was so short that Slahi could only stand bent over. Then Mister X switched on a CD player and heavy metal music filled the room, deafeningly loud.

Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor

Mister X put the song on continuous loop, turned off the lights, turned on a strobe light that emitted bright white flashes, and left the room. For a while, he says, he watched from the next room. But the music was so loud that he couldn't think. So he went outside for a smoke.

Slahi says he tried to pray, to take refuge in his own thoughts. He did not talk.

Mister X was trying out new songs. The American national anthem. A commercial for cat food that consisted only of the word "meow". Mister X turned up the air conditioning until Slahi was shaking all over. Mister X turned up the heating until Slahi had sweated through his clothes. Mister X put his feet up on the table in front of Slahi and told him that he had had a dream. In it, a pine coffin had been lowered into the ground in Guantánamo. There had been a number on the coffin. 760, Slahi's prisoner number. Then there was his outburst, which he could not get rid of later.

No matter what he did, Slahi remained silent.

Mister X: It is difficult for me to have this conversation because I am not convinced of your innocence. I still believe that you are an enemy of the United States. But what we did to you was wrong, no question about it. Nobody deserves something like that.

Mohamedou Slahi: I can assure you that I have never been an enemy of your country. I have never harmed any American. In fact, I have never harmed anyone at all. Never.

Whether Mohamedou Slahi was a terrorist, as Mister X thinks, or completely innocent, as Slahi himself claims, will probably never be clarified. Perhaps he was something in between, a sympathiser. In the search for concrete criminal acts, for terrorist actions by Mohamedou Slahi, we have spoken to many people who were close to him or who know his case well. There were constitutional protectors in Germany, where Slahi lived for eleven years, intelligence officers in Mauritania and the USA, investigators and several members of the Special Projects Team. We read German and American files. After years of research, we found - nothing.

Mohamedou Slahi grew up two hours' drive from Nouakchott, in the sandy foothills of the Sahara. His father tended the camels, his mother the twelve children. He was an exceptionally good student - just like his cousin Mahfouz, who was the same age. As teenagers, in the mid-eighties, the cousins shared a room. Late into the night, they read books about Islam and longed to join the thousands of young men from all over the Islamic world and travel to Afghanistan to fight the infidel Soviet occupiers. But they were too poor to make such a journey. Then Slahi got a scholarship to study in Germany.

In 1990, at the age of 19, he enrolled in electrical engineering in Duisburg. Five years later, now a graduate engineer, he started a job at the Fraunhofer Institute for Microelectronics. He now built microchips for the renowned German research institution, earning 4000 marks a month.

That was one life of Mohamedou Slahi. The other had begun during his studies.

1990: Stay in an Al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan. Weapons training, oath of allegiance to Emir Osama bin Laden.

1992: second trip to Afghanistan, where the Islamists were on the verge of overthrowing the Afghan government. Slahi was deployed in an artillery unit. After two months, he returned to Germany, allegedly, as he would later say, because the Islamists had disappointed him with their fighting among themselves - it was not at all the paradisiacal reign of God on earth that he had imagined.

At that time, there was still a kind of community of interest between Al-Qaida and the West; after all, Bin Laden's people had helped to drive the Soviet occupiers out of Afghanistan.

If you ask Slahi what his relationship with Al-Qaeda was like in 1992 after his return to Germany, he says: "That chapter of my life was closed. I cut all ties. I stopped reading the magazines, stopped informing myself about Al-Qaeda's activities, had no more friends in the organisation, no more contacts, with anyone, no phone calls, nothing."

If this were true, Slahi would have turned her back on the organisation before turning against the US.

But it isn't true. Slahi kept in touch: with his cousin, with whom he used to share a room and who had since become a confidant of Osama bin Laden under the name Abu Hafs al-Mauritani - once the cousin even called him on bin Laden's satellite phone; with a friend in Duisburg who was involved in the attack on the synagogue on Djerba in April 2002; with another friend who was later convicted of planning an attack on La Réunion. And Slahi, in Duisburg in October 1999, had three overnight guests, one of whom was Ramzi Binalshibh, who would later become one of the key planners of 9/11. Binalshibh later told his American interrogators that the other two visitors were two of the hijackers. At the meeting in Duisburg, Slahi advised them to travel to Afghanistan.

Slahi's involvement with Al-Qaeda

Slahi did not break off all contacts. On the contrary, the list of his friends and acquaintances reads like an extract from Al-Qaeda's Who's Who.

If you ask Slahi about these contacts, he confirms everything, but acts as if it is an insult that you bring up these little things at all. These were his friends, and what his friends believed or did had nothing to do with him.

All those contacts and friendships - it is not hard to imagine that hunting fever broke out among Mister X and his colleagues. It's hard to imagine what Slahi might know. Even if he himself was perhaps hardly involved.

Perhaps he would lead the investigators to his cousin, bin Laden's confidant. It was suspected that the cousin and Bin Laden were on the run together.

I wonder how many lives could be saved if only he finally came clean?

Mister X says that as a team they felt they were fighting on the front line of the war on terror. He says he was aware that if he got anything of significance out of Slahi, President George W. Bush would be informed personally.

For weeks, Mister X worked his way around Slahi. To no avail. Then he got a new boss, a man called Richard Zuley, known as Dick.

Mister X says of him today, "Dick is a diabolical motherfucker."

Richard Zuley himself says, "All Mister X got out of Slahi was petty stuff. Slahi had everything under control, we had to change that."

Zuley now lives in a row house on Chicago's north side. For years he worked here as a police officer; now, in retirement, he spends a lot of time at the airfield where his small plane is parked. When Zuley talks about how he took over Slahi's interrogations, he smiles. "There was then no question about who was in charge."

Zuley suggested to Slahi that the latter's mother could be raped if he didn't talk. And under Zuley's command, Slahi was beaten half to death. That was one day in late August 2003. When Mister X saw Slahi's bloody and swollen face, he says, he was shocked. For him, this raw physical violence went far beyond the limits of what was permissible and was also not compatible with Rumsfeld's list. Mister X confronted his boss - and was taken off the case the same day.

When asked why, Zuley replies, "I used people who were effective." One senses no sense of injustice, only pride that he managed to break Slahi.

Slahi was moved to a new cell that evening. "There was nothing in the cell," Slahi remembers, "no window. No clock. Nothing on the wall that I could look at. It was pure loneliness. I don't know how long it lasted, I didn't even know when it was day and night, but eventually I knocked and said I was ready to talk."

After months of silence, Slahi was now talking so much that Zuley had paper and pens brought to him, and later a computer. Slahi wrote that he had planned an attack on the CN Tower in Toronto. He listed accomplices. He drew organigrams of terror cells in Europe. Slahi says it was all made up.

In fact, intelligence agencies soon raised doubts about the veracity of the information Zuley's team passed on to them. In November 2003, Zuley ordered a lie detector test on Mohamedou Slahi. The latter recanted his confession and the machine failed.

Mohamedou Slahi: You know so little about me. Obviously your government has given you very little information ...

Mister X: Let me make something clear.

Mohamedou Slahi: May I please finish my sentence?

Mister X: Excuse me, please continue.

Mohamedou Slahi: The military prosecutor who was going to charge me, Stuart Couch, was going to ask for the death penalty at the beginning, but then he realised that I am innocent.

Stuart Couch is now 56 years old and a judge. An accurately dressed man with a military short haircut and a fierce southern accent. On a Sunday morning in January 2021, we have an appointment at a hotel in Charlottesville, Virginia. Couch talks about his Christian family and his time as a soldier in the Marines, which shaped him. He paints a picture of himself as a man who was shaped by a strong belief in values and rules. Rules that demanded a lot of him when he had to make the most difficult decision of his career in spring 2004.

The US government had given him, the military prosecutor, the task of indicting the most important prisoner in Guantánamo Bay, Mohamedou Ould Slahi. Of course, this was a potential death penalty case, says Couch. After all, it had to be assumed that Slahi had recruited the later hijackers for al-Qaida - at the meeting in the Duisburg flat.

There was a lot of circumstantial evidence for Slahi's involvement with Al-Qaeda, namely the many friendships and contacts. Couch assumed that with all the smoke, it was a matter of time before the fire was encountered. "My grandfather used to say, 'If you lie down with the dogs, you'll get fleas.' And man, Slahi must have lain with a lot of dogs."

But Couch found no fire - not a shred of evidence. Instead, he found something else. On a site visit to Guantánamo, he heard loud music blaring from an interrogation room in a hallway. Let the Bodies hit the floor. Through the crack in the door he saw bright flashes of light. Inside, a detainee was chained to the floor in front of two speakers.

"What I did was torture. No doubt about it"

The scene repelled him as a human being and as a Christian, he says. As a prosecutor, he immediately understood: if they did the same to Slahi, he had a huge problem. What he had said or would still say would have no relevance in court. "Under torture, people tell everything, whether it is true or not, the main thing is that the torture stops," says Couch.

He began investigating what was going on at Guantánamo. Shortly after Slahi's confession reached him, he had certainty: it was worth nothing.

Stuart Couch says he wrestled with himself for days. Not pressing charges would mean possibly letting a terrorist get away with it. He consulted with his priest. Then he told his superior that he was withdrawing from the case.

The case never went to trial. Nevertheless, Slahi remained in prison for another twelve years. Only in October 2016 was he released, one of the last decisions of the Obama administration.

Asked today if Stuart Couch believes Slahi was a terrorist then, he replies, "I don't know."

Mister X says he is sure. All you have to do is look at the way Slahi communicates. He plays games - no innocent man does that.

In fact, watching Slahi talk to Mister X, one sometimes gets the impression of watching a shrewd politician. Mister X says a total of six times that the torture should not have happened. Slahi never responds to this. Instead, he talks about other things - his innocence, criticism of America. Once he starts talking about Chalid Sheikh Mohammed, the chief planner of 9/11, who is still in Guantánamo. Another time about the US war in Afghanistan.

Mister X: I won't say anything about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, nor about politics. I can only talk about the techniques I used. That they were wrong and I should never have done it. They should never have been abused. They should never have been beaten. That's not who we are. That's not who I am.

Mister X tells Slahi that he painted him, six years after that August day in 2003. Bleeding Slahi in oil with a busted lip and a swollen eye. Now, during the conversation, he asks us reporters to send a photo of the painting to Mauritania via WhatsApp.

Mohamedou Slahi: Ah, wow. This prisoner in the picture looks much better than the real prisoner back then. (Slahi laughs)

Mister X: You actually didn't look very good that day. And this painting is not meant to ... it's to reflect what happened to you that day.

Mister X painted the picture when he had just resigned from the army. His post-traumatic stress disorder had become so bad that he could no longer work. The alcohol had stopped helping, the medication was no longer working either. So now painting. He says he had hoped that the artistic confrontation would trigger a catharsis. But it only brought pain. So he destroyed the painting again. Only the photo is still there.

Mister X: I have to live with this shame. Maybe this is a small victory for you, that I have to live with my behaviour.

Mohamedou Slahi: Um, I don't know ... I always had the impression that you were an intelligent person. And it was hard for me to understand how you could do such a thing to me.

Slahi asks exactly the question that determines Mister X's life. After art failed to give him an answer, he tried science. He enrolled in Creative Studies at university. He studied how creativity is used for evil purposes, for cigarette advertising, weapons of mass destruction, torture. He read study after study in search of an explanation for why he was capable of so much cruelty. From all that reading, he took away: The tendency to cruelty is in all human beings. It asserts itself when the circumstances allow it. The circumstances in his case were: a country that craved revenge. A president who demanded success. A superior who spurred on the interrogators.

"My country made me do some pretty shitty things, and I did them," says Mister X. "I hate myself for it. And I hate my country for making me this monster." He speaks out, "What I did was torture. One hundred percent. No doubt about it."

The few studies that exist on people who have tortured suggest that there are two types of torturers. The ones who live on afterwards as if nothing had happened. And the others who break. Scientists suspect that it is the worldview of the torturer that determines which category he or she will fall into.

For example, if a person tortures, like Richard Zuley, in the belief that it is morally right to torture one individual in order to possibly save thousands, then he is more likely to escape unscathed.

If, like Mister X, he tortures in contradiction to his own humanism, then shame and guilt are more likely to trigger trauma. The symptoms then often resemble those of torture victims, only one thing is sometimes added: a deep mistrust in institutions. Those who have been forced to do abysmal things in the name of a system, an ideology, a country, their trust in this system, this ideology, this country is sometimes shaken by this.

Can there ever be reconciliation?

Mohamedou Slahi, the victim, on the other hand, has managed something that therapists very rarely see. Victims are often stuck in a situation of helplessness and hopelessness. Slahi has broken out of this helplessness. He has made himself an actor.

You can watch numerous videos of Slahi's performances on the net. The audience is often visibly moved when he talks about how he received his guard in Mauritania. Actress Jodie Foster, who won a Golden Globe for her role as Slahi's lawyer in the film The Mauritanian, said of him in a statement at the awards ceremony: "You taught us so much: what it means to be human. Joyful of life. Loving. Forgiving. We love you, Mohamedou Ould Slahi!"

It is always this one thing that touches people, what they admire him for: that he is willing and able to forgive.

In a way, Slahi says in one of our interviews in Mauritania, forgiveness is also a form of revenge for him. He is taking revenge on his tormentors and all the people who fought the American war on terror for 20 years: before the eyes of the world public, he exposes the actions of those who thought they were the good guys as evil. And he stylises himself, the supposedly so evil, as the good guy.

Mohamedou Slahi: I want to tell you: I forgive you, just as I forgive all those who have caused me pain. I forgive the Americans ...

Mister X: Yeah ...

Mohamedou Slahi: ... With all my heart. I want to live in peace with you.

Mister X: It is important for me to clarify that I did not ask for your forgiveness. I have to forgive myself.

It doesn't work for Mister X, he rebuffs Slahi. The two do not find each other. One last try: Slahi tries another subject.

Mohamedou Slahi: How are you today? Are you married? Do you have children?

Mister X: I'm not going to talk about my family or where I live, what I do or don't do. That's how it is, mate.

The conversation lasts 18 minutes and 46 seconds and ends with frustration on both sides.

Mohamedou Slahi: Anyway, I wish you all the best.
Mister X: You too.
Mohamedou Slahi: I think you are what you do. I forgive you with all my heart, even if you don't ask me to.
Mister X: It's okay. I have nothing more to say. Goodbye, Mister Slahi.
Mohamedou Slahi: Bye.
When the video link ends, the two are left unreconciled, the weak, self-doubting perpetrator, and the strong victim.
When one person tortures another, it's quite intimate. Tears. Screams. Pain. Fear. Nudity. A torturer sees things that otherwise only the partner sees, if at all. Mister X and Mohamedou Slahi are familiar with each other and strangers at the same time. They know everything about each other - and nothing. In this conversation, in which there seems to be nothing in common, it becomes clear that there is one thing they do share: Eight weeks in Guantánamo in the summer of 2003 have made them who they are today.
Mohamedou Slahi lives largely from his story, from what was done to him. His suffering has brought him not only pain and nightmares, but also wealth and prestige. He married a human rights lawyer who worked in Guantánamo and had a child with her. He has turned his destiny around.
In Mister X's life, almost everything has turned into its opposite. He no longer votes for the Republicans, as he used to, but for the Democrats. He is no longer for the death penalty, but against it. He is no longer sure he wants to continue living in the USA, but is thinking of emigrating.

For several years, Mister X has been teaching young soldiers and FBI agents interrogation techniques. At the beginning of the course, there are always people who say: torture should be allowed. He then says, no, absolutely not. Torture exacts a high price. Not only of the person who suffers it. But also on the one who commits it. Sometimes he talks about himself.

Source: https://www.zeit.de/2021/36/folter-guantanamo-mohamedou-ould-slahi-gefangener-folterer-gespraech-terrorismus/komplettansicht

Translated with DeepL: https://www.deepl.com/