60 Minutes - Sunday, March 12, 2017

Episode Date: March 13, 2017

Vladimir Kara-Murza vows to return to Russia to continue his opposition to Putin's policies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There are very few things that you can be certain of in life. But you can always be sure the sun will rise each morning. You can bet your bottom dollar that you'll always need air to breathe and water to drink. And, of course, you can rest assured that with Public Mobile's 5G subscription phone plans, you'll pay the same thing every month. With all of the mysteries that life has to offer, a few certainties can really go a long way. Subscribe today for the peace of mind you've been searching for. Public Mobile. Different is calling. What's better than a well-marbled

ribeye sizzling on the barbecue? A well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Groceries that over-deliver. Vladimir Karamurza was an anti-Putin activist, which he knew was a dangerous mission. And one day, in May 2015, he learned just how dangerous.

I went within about 20 minutes from feeling completely normal to feeling like a very sick man. And I don't remember anything for the next month. He survived against all odds, only to fall deathly ill again last month. And again, he and others believe he was poisoned. It's death if you cross the Putin regime. American people believe in justice, and they decided to give me a forum, to give me a voice. Mohamedou Salahi was a sworn member of al-Qaeda and spent nearly 14 years as prisoner 760 in Guantanamo Bay. How much English did you speak when you landed in Guantanamo?

Almost none. Improbably, while fighting for his own release, he taught himself English, wrote a best-selling book about his life in American custody, and became good friends with some of his guards, one of whom you'll hear from tonight. Do you think you might go and visit him now that he's been released? I would love to someday. I'm Steve Croft.

I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Holly Stahl. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Holly Williams. I'm Scott Pelley. Those stories tonight on 60 Minutes. Welcome to Play It, a new podcast network featuring radio and TV personalities talking business, sports, tech, entertainment, and more. Play it at play.it.

Questions continue to surround the role Russia may have played in President Trump's election last fall and about the president's professed admiration for Vladimir Putin's skills as a strong leader. What the president doesn't talk about is the unfortunate fate that stalks some of Putin's most prominent critics. They have been victims of unsolved shootings, suspicious suicides, and poisonings. Tonight, the story of one of them. Vladimir Karamurza was an opposition activist on the front lines, protesting Putin's policies, organizing demonstrations, and town hall meetings. He

knew he was on a dangerous mission. When we met him last year, he told us that one day in May 2015, he learned just how dangerous. I was in a work meeting with my colleagues in Moscow when I suddenly started to feel really sick and I went within about 20 minutes from feeling completely normal to feeling like a very sick man. And I don't remember anything for the next month. You were out for a month? I was in a coma for a week, and I don't remember anything for a month

and had basically a cascade of all my major life organs failing one after another, just switching off, you know, the lungs, the heart, the kidneys. He was shuttled from hospital to hospital in Moscow for two days as doctors frantically tried to figure out what was wrong with him. I was at one point connected, I think, to eight different artificial life support machines and doctors told my wife that it's only going to be about five percent chance that I'll survive. But he beat the odds. When we spoke with him last year, he'd been recovering for a year, but he was still walking with a limp from nerve damage.

So what happened? Well, it was some kind of a very strong toxin. We don't know what it was because, you know, with these things, as people who know more about this than I do explain to me, you basically have to know exactly what you're testing for in order to find it. So they never found the exact compound? They never did. It wasn't until the fourth day and after he'd been on a dialysis machine that blood was drawn and sent to a toxicology lab in France. It found heavy metals in his blood, but no specific toxin. Still,

Karamurza maintains that he was poisoned. I have absolutely no doubt that this was deliberate poisoning, that it was intended to kill, because, as I mentioned already, the doctors told my wife that it's about a 5% chance of survival, and when it's that kind of percentage, it's not to scare, it's to kill. Can you be sure that what happened to you was directed by Mr. Putin? Well, of that I have no idea. I don't know the precise circumstances, I don't know the who or the how,

but I do know why. Vladimir don't know the precise circumstances. I don't know the who or the how, but I do know why. Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. In recent years, quite a few of Putin's enemies have perished by swallowing things they shouldn't have. In 2006, Russian spy-turned-Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko drank tea laced with polonium-210. Two years earlier, the Ukrainian politician Viktor Yushchenko had somehow ingested dioxin. He survived, but was disfigured. But what would the motive be in the case of the critic Vladimir Karamurza? Cambridge-educated, he was for years a Washington-based reporter for a Russian TV station. So he was well-connected and had perfect English,

which he used to incessantly criticize the regime on the international stage. A government that is based on genuine support does not need to jail its opponents. As if his outspokenness wasn't enough to anger the Kremlin, he made matters worse for himself when he joined forces with this man. It's death if you cross the Putin regime. Bill Browder was for years the largest foreign investor in Russia and Putin's champion. But he turned into a dogged adversary when his Russian tax attorney, Sergei Magnitsky, blew the whistle on alleged large-scale theft by government officials.

We discovered massive corruption of the Putin regime. Sergei exposed it, testified against the officials involved. He was subsequently arrested, put in pretrial detention, tortured for 358 days, and killed at the age of 37. Browder was so outraged, he joined with Vladimir Karamurza to lobby the U.S. Congress for a law targeting those responsible for that death and other human rights violations. They succeeded. The Magnitsky Act passed in 2012. It's the first law that sanctions individual Russians, 44 so far. The Magnitsky Act is designed to sanction, to freeze the assets and ban the visas for people who commit these types of crimes in Russia.

So they can't get to their money, which may be stashed in the United States. And so Vladimir Putin is extremely angry that the Magnitsky Act was going to be passed. He was even angrier when it got passed. And he was even angrier when people started getting of them was Boris Nemtsov, a leader of Russia's opposition and Karamurza's partner in lobbying for the Magnitsky Act. On the 27th of February 2015, he was killed by five bullets in the back as he was walking home, as he always did out in the open without bodyguards. This was an assassination. In some of the deaths, proving there was foul play has been a challenge. Take the case of this Russian banker who came forward with incriminating documents related to the Magnitsky case. Alexander Parapolichny was a whistleblower. At the age of 44, he went jogging outside his home in Surrey, outside of London, and dropped dead.

The police deemed it an unsuspicious natural death. Well, they did look for poison. They just couldn't find any. They did a very first-round toxicology screen. They didn't find anything on the first run-through. Detecting poison can be extremely difficult, and there's a reason. This Cold War CIA memo reveals that the Soviets ran a laboratory for poisons in a large and super-secret installation known as the Chamber to test undetectable compounds. In the case of the banker in London, the coroner wasn't willing to give up. He ordered more tests, and three years later, it was revealed in court

that an exotic toxin was found with the help of an authority on flowers. A small sample of his stomach contents was sent to a botanical garden outside of London, and one of the scientists found a compound called Gelsimian elegans, which is a Chinese herb. They call it the heartbreak grass, and it causes a person to die unexpectedly without explanation. Still, there's no direct evidence of a Kremlin connection, but the list of those who've come to die unexpectedly after running afoul of Mr. Putin is long. Political opponents and human rights lawyers

have been shot. Overly inquisitive reporters have perished in mysterious plane crashes, or by car bombs, by poison, or gunfire. Journalist Anna Polakovskaya was poisoned and shot. Then there are enemies who kill themselves, one by hanging, one by stabbing himself to death with two knives, and one by tying himself to a chair and jumping into a swimming pool. Some of Putin's opponents are in prison, others forced out of the country, like Mikhail Khodorkovsky, probably Putin's most famous living critic. Are you afraid for your own life? For a period of over 10 years, Vladimir Putin had ample opportunity to make a decision about putting an end to my life,

in a very easy way, just by snapping his fingers. And today, it's a little bit more difficult. Khodorkovsky was once the richest man in Russia until he took to opposing Putin. He was put on trial, his oil company confiscated, and then thrown in prison for 10 years. Home is now London, where he funds a Russian pro-democracy movement. And this is where the plot thickens, because one of his senior organizers on the ground in Russia is none other than Vladimir Karamurza. There are people who say that what's happened to Karamurza is a message to you, a message to you to back off.

You know, for 10 years I was receiving lots of messages from our authorities of various sorts. And some of these messages were rather unpleasant concerning my physical well-being. But the authorities saw I ignored these messages. I would like to believe that they have not forgotten that. In 2015, once Vladimir Karamurza was stabilized, he was flown to Washington, D.C. to continue treatment near his wife, Yevgenia, and their three children, who live in the U.S. for their safety. But as soon as Karamurza got better, he was itching to go back to Russia. I think what my husband

believes in will always outweigh the fear. Even for you? Of course I'm terrified. But at the same time, you know, I married the guy 13 years ago and I knew what I was getting into. You know, I think there's nothing better this regime, the Putin regime, would like us to do than to give up and run away. And we're not going to give them that pleasure. Even after being poisoned? It's our country. We have to fight for it. He told us this in June. He went back immediately after, even though threats against him had intensified, like this video posted on Instagram putting him in the crosshairs of a sniper rifle. He was continuing his opposition work when just last month...

All of a sudden, he begins experiencing this very elevated heart rate. His blood pressure drops very low. He begins sweating, and he has trouble breathing. His wife thinks her husband was attacked the same way as before. The first time, he had been dragged from one hospital to another to yet another while they were trying to establish the cause. This time, he was taken directly to the hospital to the same medical team that had treated him in 2015. And the moment they saw him, they knew what they were dealing with.

And what do you think happened? The Russian doctor's official diagnosis is an acute intoxication by an undetermined substance, which is poisoning. This happened just as Washington was raising questions about President Trump's relationship with Mr. Putin. So last month, Vladimir Karamurza became an issue on the Senate floor. Vladimir has once again paid the price for his gallantry and integrity. Politicians on both sides of the aisle spoke out against the apparent poisoning, but the Trump administration has not. Remarkably, Kara Merza survived again.

Less than three weeks after he collapsed, he was flown to the U.S., and two weeks later, we spoke to him for a second time. You look pretty good. How are you actually feeling? Well, you're very kind. I don't think I feel as good as I look. He said he's recovering faster because his doctors knew just what to do this time. The Kremlin has denied any involvement, and since no poison has been found yet, supporters of Putin question whether he was really poisoned at all. We've been told that we are very naive, naive journalists, gullible, and that this whole thing is concocted by the opposition to fool the American people into thinking that that regime would do such a thing.

To those who say that this is a plot, I honestly, and I mean this sincerely, I wish I never have to experience what I had experienced twice in the last sincerely, I wish I never have to experience what I had experienced twice in the last two years. When you're trying to breathe and you cannot. When you feel your organs shutting down, giving up on you one after another. And when you feel the life coming out of your body in the next few hours and you don't remember anything

for the next month and then for the next year, you're trying to relearn how to walk, how to use cutlery, you know, how to talk to your kids. Again, I wish these people who tell you these things never have to experience this. I honestly, sincerely do. You were very, very sick and went back. Now, are you finished? Are you saying I'm not going back? Oh, God, no, of course not. You're going to go back? Of course, I will absolutely go back to Russia. I'm Russian. This is my country. And I believe in what I do and what my colleagues do. There are many of us.

But not many have almost died twice. Many, unfortunately, have died. I'm the fortunate one. I'm still here. I'm still talking to you. Many of my colleagues cannot do that. Welcome to Play It, a new podcast network featuring radio and TV personalities talking business, sports, tech, entertainment and more. Play it at play.it. President Obama tried and failed to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, a place he believed, quote, hinders our fight against terrorism. President Trump disagreed and has vowed to, quote, load it up with some bad dudes.

Just 41 prisoners remain at Guantanamo, and of the nearly 800 who were there at some point, not many have been interviewed. But tonight, Holly Williams has the story of one very unusual former detainee in his first television interview. Mohamedou Salahi was set free by the United States and sent to his home country of Mauritania last October

after nearly 14 years as prisoner 760 in Guantanamo Bay. Improbably, while fighting for his own release, he taught himself English, wrote a best-selling book about his life in American custody, and became good friends with some of his guards, one of whom you'll hear from tonight. Salahi spent about one-third of his life at Guantanamo, and his book offered an unprecedented look inside the prison. Though it includes descriptions of torture, it can be funny at times,

and we discovered that in person, Salahi has a keen sense of humour. Six weeks after he was released from Guantanamo, we went to North West Africa to meet him. What's it like. I don't know how to describe it in words, but you feel like humiliation, you feel self-pity, you feel like panic. I didn't have a plan. I was learning as I was going. Mohamedou Salahi is once again adapting to unfamiliar surroundings, this time home and freedom. To learn how he went from here to Guantanamo and back again, we travelled to the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. It's a tribal and deeply religious nation of nearly four million people, where the Sahara Desert meets the sea. About the size of Texas and New Mexico combined,

the country is due east of Cuba, separated from Salahi's old prison home by the width of the Atlantic. You know what's there? Yes. Guantanamo. Guantanamo Bay. About 3,800 miles in that direction. I say goodbye. Hope never to see you again.

Before we explain how Salahi ended up in Guantanamo in the first place, we'll tell you how a talent for languages helped him survive there. How much English did you speak when you landed in Guantanamo? Almost none. In the office of his new apartment in Mauritania, Mohamedou Salahi showed us how he learned English in Guantanamo. He reads and writes his fourth language with some help from the US Navy. Where did you get those glasses?

Glasses I got from Navy hospital in Guantanamo Bay. Thank you doctors. And they had choices and I took the ugliest one. You chose? As a sign of protest. He was his own teacher in Guantanamo, soaking up new vocabulary wherever he could. I'm letting you now into my world. This is how I learned the English language.

This is the original. So you would, what, hear something and write it down? Hear something, write it down and ask. And then ask a guard? Ask a guard or an interrogator. How do you spell that? Whomever I meet. Yeah. To chortle.

To chortle. That's a very good word. Snorting a joyful laugh. To chortle. Chortle. Skyscraper, riot, suicide. You were just working on building your vocabulary. So what I do, I take this and then I just go in my cell back and forth

and memorizing everything, every day. She threaded her fingers through that thick mane of exquisitely dyed hair. Yes. What were you reading? I think that was Yaya's sisterhood. In 2005, three years after he arrived at Guantanamo, Salahi used his new language skills

to demand his immediate release. He hand wrote his own petition for a writ of habeas corpus, a legal document challenging the US government's right to imprison him. He also began a correspondence with his American lawyers that became the Guantanamo Diary. It's been translated into 27 different languages, but it took seven years for his legal team to convince the government to allow its publication, and they only permitted a heavily

censored version. It's like I was shouting in the dark for years, then I saw a very small hole that I could shout through, which was my lawyer. I don't know if you've seen this before. It is the original copy of the review of your book in the New York Times. Have you seen it before? Never. First time. You were locked in a prison with so little contact with the outside world. And meanwhile, your work was being discussed.

That shows the greatness of American people. Not my greatness, because American people believe in justice and they decided to give me a forum, to give me a voice. By 2004, the US government regarded him as a cooperative prisoner. So Salahi was living in a special segregated hut. He had access to books, movies and his own vegetable garden. But he was still a prisoner struggling with solitude 4,000 miles from home. You can bet your bottom dollar that I was lonely. I mean in the book you describe the guards as your family. Yes. Is that true? They really a lot of them treated me as as a brother. We found one of Salahi's former guards,

who asked us to disguise his appearance and withhold his name. He had security concerns because of his work at Guantanamo. How long did you guard him for? Ten months. And when was that, the first time you met him? In July of 2004. Any first impressions? Just that he wasn't this horrible terrorist that, you know,

I was expecting to go guard, you know, that I was told it was everybody there is the worst of the worst. And this guy comes out with a smile on his face. So straight away you started thinking, this is not what I was expecting. I felt something was off. Definitely. You didn't think he was going to harm you? No. If he wanted to, I mean, there were times where we slept while he was sleeping and his door was open and, like, if he wanted to kill us, he could have. But you were pretty sure he wasn't going to do that? Yeah. I had no issues. You trusted him?

Definitely. He was very shocked because he told me, they told him, this is the worst of the worst. And I wasn't very open to the guards because I was afraid of them. But he kept poking me until we opened up to each other. It was a very good time with him. We'd play Monopoly or a lot of Rummy, watch movies like over and over. And yeah, just hanging out with us. We heard there was one film in particular that you guys watched over and over.

The Big Lebowski, like nonstop, like he could quote it like word for word, like a giant portion of the movie. It's hilarious. I mean, I was struck by that. What's interesting about The Big Lebowski is they get the wrong guy. Yes. You got the wrong guy. I'm the dude, man. I was struck by that. What's interesting about the Big Lebowski is they get the wrong guy. Yes. You got the wrong guy. I'm the dude, man.

I'm not your guy. You played a role in Mohamedou Salahi's release. You wrote a letter to the review board that decided on whether he would finally be released. I think, is that the letter there? That is. Yeah. That is. I just want to read you a section of it. You said, based on my interactions with Mr. Salahi while in Guantanamo, I would be pleased

to welcome him into my home. Based on my interactions, I do not have safety concerns if I were to do so. I would like the opportunity to eventually see him again. For sure, that's totally honest. Last year, when the military's periodic review board finally cleared him to go home, Salahi says his guards and interrogators seemed even happier than he was, including the officer in charge. She was smiling,

the most beautiful smile I've ever seen in my life. She said, you know you're leaving? I said, no, I didn't know. What were you feeling? I was feeling happy, but I always learned not to over-celebrate, because so many people received clearance, but they lingered in prison for so many years, including to this day. You didn't want to jinx it?

I never heard jinx it, but I presume it's the right word here. He says he was flown home from Guantanamo Bay the same way he arrived, shackled and blindfolded. Strapped on a chair too. It's very painful. More than 10 hours in a chair. Did you ask, why are you doing this to me? Why in the world should I ask any question? I didn't want them to change their mind.

I said, do whatever you got to do. I need to go home and go home quick. Salahi's long road to Guantanamo began not with the war on terror, but with another war covered here on 60 Minutes. In 1988, correspondent Harry Reasoner and producer George Kreil travelled to Afghanistan to tell the tale of a congressman from Texas named Charlie Wilson. He persuaded the US to arm the Mujahideen, a band of holy warriors who were fighting the Soviet Union and their communist allies. A few years later, Salahi, who was studying in Germany,

decided, along with thousands of other Muslim men from around the world, to join the battle against the communists. This was a big coalition, including my country and your country. What made you decide to go to Afghanistan as a young man? You thought you were fighting for a just cause? Yes, I was sure then. I did not know. Today I know. In Afghanistan, Salahi was trained to fight, not by the Afghans, but by a group of foreign fighters dedicated to the cause. At the time, they were led by a young, charismatic leader called Osama bin Laden. Salahi says he left Afghanistan the second time without ever firing a shot in battle. When I saw that the Afghanis were butchering each other,

I was completely disgusted. The first time you went to Afghanistan, what did your family think? They thought I was a nitwit. A nitwit? Yes. I should never have gone to Afghanistan. I had a scholarship that many people in the whole world dream to have. And what I did, I threw everything away and I went to Afghanistan. This is the definition of a nitwit. And when you left Afghanistan for the second time,

did you still consider yourself a member of al-Qaeda? Absolutely not. I cut all my ties with the organization. To me, I joined for the sake of participating in jihad in Afghanistan. Jihad in Afghanistan turned into a quagmire. I did not want to be part of a civil war. And I went back. Thank God I resumed my studies. I finished college and I worked to help my family.

Salahi denies he ever had anything to do with terrorism, but he doesn't deny that some of his friends were still members of al-Qaeda. He also had a cousin who was a spiritual advisor to Osama bin Laden. That was really the trouble. That's where the trouble began. One day in 1999, he got a phone call from that cousin, a man known as Abu Hafs. And if you had known at the time that he was calling you from bin Laden's satellite phone, he got a phone call from that cousin, a man known as Abu Hafs. And if you had known at the time that he was calling you from bin Laden's satellite phone? I would have burned his house down.

Would you have taken the call? Absolutely not. But looking back, it's better that I took it, that the people who are listening know what I was talking about. That's where the trouble started, honestly. After 9-11, the United States government made catching Salahi a priority, and the Mauritanians were happy to help their powerful ally. On November 20, 2001, secret police knocked on the door of his mother's house.

He followed them back to their station, driving his own car. Is it over here? That's own car. Is it over here? Not the car. Fifteen years later, it still sits in the exact place where he parked it. Wow, it's a bit of a wreck. Yes, yes. Is this the right license plate? This is my license plate.

It's yours? Yes. It's kaput. After eight days in a Mauritanian jail, his government handed him over to the CIA, who flew him to a prison in Jordan where he spent eight months. US agents then took him to Bagram Air Base near Kabul, Afghanistan. After two weeks there, he was put on a military transport plane for the long trip to Cuba. At what point did it hit you in the stomach?

I'm really in a jam here. It doesn't, actually. You would be surprised. If there is no hope, there is no life. In Guantanamo, Mohamedou Salahi's special interrogation plan was personally approved by Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld. The treatment he received has since been outlawed. Welcome to Play It, a new podcast network featuring radio and TV personalities talking

business, sports, tech, entertainment and more. Play it at play.it. Of the nearly 800 men who've been incarcerated at some point in Guantanamo Bay. Prisoner 760, Mohamedou Salahi, was the only one to detail his treatment there in a book that came out while he was still detained in the prison. Published in 2015, it is a unique first-person account of life in Guantanamo and America's now-outlawed enhanced interrogation program. When Salahi arrived at the prison, his time spent in Afghanistan in the early 1990s and connections to al-Qaeda made him a top priority for US intelligence. We begin the second part of our story by asking Salahi the same questions

his interrogators asked him over and over. Did you meet any of the 9-11 hijackers? No. Did you have any prior knowledge of the 9-11 attacks? Absolutely none whatsoever. And when you saw on television those attacks, what did you think? It was heartbreaking, you know, knowing that those people, just like my family,

children, men, women, just regular people who went to their war. They didn't do anything to anyone. But they were, yet they were killed in cold blood. When you discovered that it was the work of al-Qaeda, what did you think? I thought, this is evil. Thank God that I left Afghanistan so many years. Living freely in his home country of Mauritania, Salahi is working on a new edition of his book, Guantanamo Diary, that fills in some of the blanks put in by the U.S. government. Salahi arrived in Guantanamo in August 2002.

For several months, he was interrogated by the FBI. In 2003, the military began subjecting him to so-called enhanced interrogation that included both physical and psychological abuse. His uncensored story, which you're about to hear, is supported by several reports and investigations from Congress and the Departments of Justice and Defence. They had plans. Very careful thoughts. Plans.

He says those plans began when he was moved to a special cell in the India block section of the prison, a place he nicknamed The Fridge. Why The Fridge? Yeah, it's a very small holding cell that is cold and you don't see anything, you don't see outside, completely cut off. No daylight?

Nothing. I remained there 70 days. Continuous interrogation. What do you mean by continuous? That means I had three shifts of interrogators. Every day? Every day. Were you allowed to sleep at all?

There is between the night shift and the day shift, maybe two hours. I don't know. It's not long. I didn't have any feeling for time, really. What did it do to you? I lived in a haze. I was very nervous, very angry, very easy to be angry. And I was crying for the simplest reason. What else happened? They brought another Marine guy. He wore Marine. It does not mean that he's a Marine.

I'm just saying this for the record. And then he kept pouring this water on me. Then I kept really shaking. He was pouring water on you? Yes. And then he said, answer me. But I couldn't talk because my mouth couldn't move because I was very cold. You were just too cold to talk? Yes, I couldn't move my lips. But it was another tactic that brought Salahi close to the edge. An interrogator who claimed he'd been dispatched from the White House gave Salahi grave news. He was shown a fictitious letter stating that his mother had been detained and might be transferred to Guantanamo. There was no implication that she'd done anything.

No, he said, only because I wouldn't confess. The idea that she was going to be held with male prisoners was terrible for you? That is an understatement. What was your fear? I can't even think about it. I don't want to think about it. Later, he was dragged from his cell and put on a boat.

They opened my mouth and put in salt water until I started choking. They were forcing you to drink salt water? Yes. What happened next? So they started to fill me with ice cubes. Inside your uniform? Inside my uniform. Ice cubes, full.

My body was full. And then I was like shaking uncontrollably like this. They start hitting me everywhere. Hitting. Beating you? Yeah, beating me everywhere. For how long? Again.

I didn't have feeling for a time. But it must have been three hours. How much pain were you in? I was moaning like a woman giving birth. And what did you decide to do? I decide I will tell them everything they want to know. They broke you? Absolutely. They broke you? Absolutely, they broke me.

I told the captain, the boss of my team, you write anything and I sign it. And if you buy, I'm selling. And you were lying to them? Not everything I said, my life. I told them my life, truthfully. And you were lying to them? Salahi says he told his interrogators that he was an active recruiter for al-Qaeda and was involved in a plan for a bombing in Toronto. But that plot never actually existed.

Your life got a lot better. Yes, dramatically better. No more beating. I was allowed to sleep. I was afraid of false confessing, but it was a relief because now the captain could not torture me anymore because I gave him what he wanted.

Now he had to sell this first to the FBI, to CIA, and then they have to sell this to the prosecution, military prosecution. And those people are intelligent and smart. And then what they pretty much told him, this is a bunch of BS. You told them what they wanted to hear because you wanted the torture to stop. Yes, absolutely. I falsely confessed to crime. It was bad business. Bad business. In 2004, the military officer chosen to prosecute Salahi resigned from the case, saying later that he was, quote,

convinced that Salahi had been the victim of torture, not by anything Salahi said, but solely from U.S. government documents from the intelligence databases, detailing specifically what had been done to him during the interrogations. In 2010, a federal judge ordered Salahi's release and wrote there is ample evidence that Salahi was subjected to extensive and severe mistreatment at Guantanamo. Evidence gathered through torture has complicated the government's military prosecutions at Guantanamo. There have only ever been eight convictions and three were later overturned. You were one of the worst tortured in Guantanamo, so you're in a unique position to answer this. Does torture work?

In what way? If working is bringing pain on me, yes. If working is giving false confessions, yes. If works is given good intelligence, no. If it works, resulting in my conviction, hello, I'm here after 15 years, and not even charged, let alone being convicted. So how can you convince anyone possibly who has a shred of intelligence that it works? How did you manage to not lose your sanity?

Thank you very much. The premise here is that I did not lose my sanity. This psychiatrist told me 7-6-0. That's what they called me. You are really very sick. That's what they called me. You are really very sick. Sick with what? Psychologically.

I was hearing noises. Hearing voices? Yes. What were they saying? It was my family just talking to me every day. And this wouldn't stop. And then it came to me, this doctor. And they helped me. They gave me medications over many years, heavy medication. And I was helped. They gave you psychiatric medicine?

Yes. Taxol, Klonopin. And you've seen the Sopranos? Yes. What did he take? Prozac. Things like that. They gave me a lot of this stuff. How's your health today? I don't have time to think about pain, which is good. The pain will go away. But you didn't really answer my question, Mohamed doctor. Do you sometimes relive the torture in your head? Of course, I still have nightmares. I still wake up and I think I'm in Guantanamo Bay. At 46 years old, freedom has been a major adjustment. So has fame. He returned to Mauritania a national hero. Many here are angry about what the US,

one of their allies, did to Salahi. But also proud that he's come home with his dignity intact. He's been embraced by a large extended family, including some members who weren't yet born when he disappeared. So he's been a new discovery? Yeah, many. Among many. So this is your mum's house? There have also been losses.

It's been more than 15 years since he got in his car and headed to the police station on his way to Guantanamo. Salahi's mother said goodbye that night, but she wasn't there to welcome him home. She passed away in 2013. And you didn't see your mum again? No, I never saw her again. But the last time,

it's seared in my memory. That picture froze in time. If you had to sum up the last 15 years of your life, what would you say? Pain and suffering is part of growing up, and I grew up. Mohamedou Salahi says the US government is holding several other books he wrote while in prison,

two novels and a self-help book about staying positive no matter the situation. At times during our trip to Mauritania, he seemed exhausted. But there was almost always a smile on his face. He told us getting out of Guantanamo was like being born again. I'm Scott Pelley. We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes.