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 “Guantanamo Diary”, the first account published by a current
detainee at America’s infamous prison in Cuba, is also unique in
the way it will compensate its author, Mohamedou Ould Slahi.
As the book appears in best-seller lists, funds from its sales
will go to a trust fund “to help him rebuild his life,” when he
eventually emerges from Guantanamo, said one of his lawyers,
Hina Shamsi of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Slahi cannot get access to earnings from his writings while
behind bars at one of the world’s most inaccessible prisons.
"Any funds that come from the book sales are going to be held in
trust for him and when he is finally freed they are going to be
used to help him rebuild his life," said Shamsi.
Slahi's account describes the torture, humiliation and despair
he says he underwent in U.S. captivity, most of it at the prison
in Cuba where he has been held since 2002.
It recounts a desperate existence for the Mauritanian who was
detained for alleged links to al Qaeda, deprived of sleep for
days and at times sexually molested, force-fed seawater, chained
to the floor in freezing cold rooms or subjected to a mock
execution, according to his account.
The book reached ninth place on The Sunday Times best-seller
list in Britain in late January following a celebrity-studded
rollout in London. In the U.S., where it was also released on
Jan. 20 but with less publicity, it was at 86th place last week
in the Amazon.com list of 100 top sellers but has since dropped
out.
Slahi traveled to Afghanistan in the early 1990s to fight its
then Communist government and swore an oath of loyalty to al
Qaeda while there. But he left Afghanistan soon after and says
he has never acted against the United States.
After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the U.S. government accused
Slahi of being a recruiter for al-Qaeda but he has not been
charged with an offense or put on trial.
U.S. publishers Little, Brown and Company did not disclose sales
numbers for "Guantanamo Diary," which had an initial U.S. print
run of 30,000, or details of its financial arrangements with
Slahi. He wrote the manuscript by hand in 2005.
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MOVIE RIGHTS
While money is unlikely to ever compensate Slahi for the treatment
he says he received at Guantanamo, industry sources say the book is
likely to be a reasonably strong earner.
"A first-person account from Guantanamo is a pretty attractive
property and there certainly aren’t a lot of them out there to be
got so I would suspect it could get a pretty substantial advance,"
said publishing consultant Mike Shatzkin. "It’s total speculation
but six figures would not surprise me."
Part of his advance has already been paid to the trust fund, said
Albuquerque-based lawyer Nancy Hollander, who has power of attorney
for his affairs. She also declined to quantify the advance.
Slahi's representatives have negotiated 23 separate deals for sales
around the world and are now selecting a film agent to handle
possible movie rights.
"That's actually the next step. We have gotten a lot of film
interest," said Slahi's book agent Rachel Vogel, from Waxman Leavell
agency in New York.
It is unclear when Slahi will be freed. In 2010, a judge ordered his
release but an appeals court later vacated that ruling. President
Barack Obama's administration has sped up the transfer of Guantanamo
detainees in recent months but its efforts to shut the prison have
been blocked by lawmakers who think the inmates pose a national
security threat.
Slahi has already spent some of his book earnings to send a
Mauritanian nephew to college abroad, said lawyer Hollander. He
wants to fund the education of other relatives, especially female
ones, she said.
(Editing by Jason Szep; Editing by Christian Plumb)
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