A Dutch citizen told a Cook County judge Monday afternoon that a Chicago police detective interrogating him at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, convinced him that U.S. authorities were allowing his mother to be kidnapped and raped.
Sept. 11 suspect Mohamedou Ould Slahi testified as part of Anthony Garrett’s bid for a retrial. Garrett was convicted in the 1992 murder of Dantrell Davis, 7, who was shot by a sniper in the now-demolished Cabrini-Green public housing complex while walking to school with his mother. Garrett says his confession in the case was tortured out of him by then-Chicago Police Det. Richard Zuley.
In 2003, more than a decade later, Zuley was on leave from the Police Department as a Navy reservist in the U.S. detention center at Guantánamo. After 70 days of Zuley-orchestrated torture, Slahi said, the detective confronted him with a hoax.
“Due to the lack of your cooperation, the U.S. government has decided to arrest your mother and put her in a men-only prison,” Slahi recalled Zuley telling him. “The U.S. government cannot guarantee her safety, and this is all because of you.”
Zuley led “enhanced interrogation techniques” throughout the summer that year, Slahi testified. The torture included isolation, temperature extremes, beatings, sexual humiliation, sleep deprivation, waterboarding, barking dogs and a mock execution at sea. Round-the-clock sessions allegedly included strobe lights and a looped recording of the U.S. national anthem that kept Slahi from sleeping and praying.
Slahi, 54, testified for about three hours before Circuit Court Judge Adrienne E. Davis through a video link to Leighton Criminal Courthouse from Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where he was naturalized last year. Davis ruled in July she would allow the testimony.
Slahi, who knew Zuley as Captain Collins, described an all-night boat ride and saltwater forced down his throat: “I’d throw up and they’d do it again.”
After the boat ride, Slahi testified, “I was taken on a bumpy road to a [detention] cell. Mr. Zuley said, ‘I told you not to f— with me.’ ”
“He said, ‘I don’t give a f— about fairness. I care about saving lives.’ ”
Slahi admitted on Monday he never saw Zuley lay a hand on him but added, “I don’t know because I was blindfolded.”
“I began to lose my mind,” Slahi said.
Months of Zuley’s treatment convinced Slahi to confess to anything his interrogators were feeding him, starting with plans to attack Toronto’s CN Tower, he said.
“Zuley came to me and said, ‘I’m very happy with you. You gave us 80% and we need the 20%,” he said.
From there, Slahi said, he falsely confirmed that many individuals had Al Qaeda links.
Slahi was held at Guantánamo for 14 years without charges. He was released to his native Mauritania in 2016.
His memoirs about those years were published as a book that formed the basis of director Kevin Macdonald’s 2021 film “The Mauritanian,” starring Jodie Foster and Benedict Cumberbatch.
State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke’s office is contesting Garrett’s bid for a retrial.
At Monday’s hearing, Assistant State’s Attorney William Meyer asked Slahi about visits to Afghanistan in the early 1990s. Slahi testified he was working for U.S. allies there and cut ties from Al Qaeda years before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
“When you look at the evidence,” Meyer said, “what you’ll see is a witness 10 years [after Dantrell’s murder] at Guantánamo — a sworn enemy of the United States, trained as a terrorist.”
“This is not a movie,” Meyer gestured to Garrett. “Dantrell Davis did die, and this is the man who did it.”
Zuley along with a detective commander and unidentified cops interrogated Garrett for nearly two days. Garrett eventually signed a handwritten statement admitting to Dantrell’s murder.
But Meyer said Garrett “didn’t complain of any bruises or maltreatment” until a newspaper interviewed him three months after his alleged torture: “That’s when he alleged his confession was beaten out of him.”
In 1994, a jury convicted Garrett. A judge sentenced him to 100 years in prison. Garrett, 67, is not scheduled for release until 2040, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections.
Garrett’s proceedings this week stem from a 2023 referral by the Illinois Torture and Relief Commission that detailed an “overwhelming” history of “lengthy and consistent” complaints alleging psychological and physical torture involving Zuley, who was hired by CPD in 1970 and who worked more than three decades for the department.
To win Garrett a new trial, his attorneys are trying to show a “pattern and practice” of Zuley coercing confessions. In court filings, his attorneys have listed a string of Chicago murder cases between 1987 and 2003, when Slahi’s interrogation took place, in which a suspect alleged coercion involving Zuley.
Judges in recent years have vacated at least four murder convictions involving Zuley. The exonerees include Lathierial Boyd, Lee Harris, Carl Reed and David Wright.
Zuley and his attorneys have not returned WBEZ messages seeking comment.
He is scheduled to testify Tuesday afternoon.
Chip Mitchell reports for WBEZ Chicago on policing, public safety and public health. Follow him at Bluesky and X. Contact him at cmitchell@wbez.org.