Saleh Sassi

Saleh Sassi has been held in Guantanamo Bay since 2002. He found himself in the prison after being captured by Afghans and transferred to US custody, more than likely in return for one of bounties on offer for suspected “foreign fighters” at the time.

Saleh was born in Menzel, Tunisia, in September 1973; like many young Tunisian men, he opted to move to Italy in the hopes of finding work and a better life. He moved in 1998, settling in Turin.

Things were easier for Saleh in Europe. Trained as a welder and skilled laborer, Saleh lent his hand to complicated construction projects. He lived and worked in Italy until 2001, and had an official residency card or permesso di soggiorno.

In July 2001, Saleh left Italy during his summer holidays and ultimately traveled to Afghanistan, well before the Americans entered the conflict there. He intended to return to Europe after a time, but when the war started, he was picked up and handed to the US military. A short time later, he was taken to Guantánamo Bay.

While held by the US military, Saleh has often been kept in brutal conditions. The vast majority of his imprisonment has been spent in isolation, which has caused him to suffer clinical depression; he has described his situation as a long and unending nightmare.

Saleh has been cleared for release by the Americans, but he feels utterly hopeless. Much of this would be remedied by the prospect of release to a safe country—Saleh cannot safely return to Tunisia.

While prevented from interacting with other prisoners, Saleh has been visited in Guantánamo by several teams of foreign interrogators—including the Italians and the Tunisians. In late 2002, Tunisian agents came to Guantánamo and left no doubt about what awaited ex-Guantánamo inmates back in Tunisia: “water torture in the barrel” and other horrors.

The Tunisian security services made as good as their word in June 2007, when two Tunisians were transferred to their custody from Guantánamo Bay. Both men were abused. One reported that he was drugged, beaten, denied food and water, sleep deprived and threatened with the rape of his wife and daughters unless he signed a false confession.

Today, Saleh faces similar persecution. Due to the stamp of Guantanamo, the Tunisians will in all likelihood not hesitate to torture him if he is forcibly returned.

The US military has, by its own rules, determined that Saleh does not pose a threat to the US or its allies and that he has no intelligence to provide. He could leave Guantánamo tomorrow if he had somewhere to go. Instead he remains in jail, aware that his chances of finding a country willing to offer him asylum have been hampered by the rhetoric of the very administration that cleared him for release.

Saleh has family who remain in Italy and has expressed a desire to resettle somewhere in Europe, where he wishes to resume construction work, marry, and put the nightmare of his incarceration in Guantanamo behind him.