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. Today, they are housed in a little fenced-in compound at the military prison, where they live a life of relative privilege -- gardening, writing and painting -- separated from other detainees in a cocoon designed to reward and protect.
But as the Obama administration attempts to close the prison, Sawah and Slahi are trapped in a gilded cage. Their old jihadi comrades want them dead, revenge for the apostasy, now well known, of working with the United States. The U.S. government has rewarded them for their cooperation but has refused to countenance their release.
In the early morning hours of 12 June, Moises Sotelo woke up to go to work...
