Rewarded, protected, but still at Guantanamo
By the time Tariq al-Sawah, a veteran of the wars in Bosnia and Afghanistan, reached Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in May 2002, there was no fight left in him.
Injured by a cluster bomb in the mountains of Afghanistan, the middle-aged Egyptian was still recovering from wounds to his hands, back, thighs and buttocks when the Americans grabbed him.
Three months later, Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who had moved in radical circles in Germany, turned up at the U.S. military prison.
There, a masked interrogator threatened the Mauritanian with death while others deprived him of sleep and bombarded him with sound and light, pushing him to the brink of a mental breakdown.
When it came to their initial treatment at Guantanamo, Sawah and Slahi had little in common, according to military officials. Their paths would intersect only later, when they both made the same choice: to cooperate with the United States.
Sawah, now 52, and Slahi, now 39, have become two of the most significant informants ever to be held at Guantanamo.