Guantanamo Bay inmate Mohamedou Ould Slahi's memoir to be released

The first memoir by a current inmate detailing life inside Guantanamo is to be released next week following a six-year legal fight to declassify the manuscript, extracts of which have appeared in The Guardian.

In Guantanamo Diary, Mohamedou Ould Slahi claims he only confessed to involvement in various terror plots - including one to bomb the CN Tower in Toronto, Canada - after being tortured and humiliated.

Asked by interrogators if he was telling the truth, he replied: "I don't care as long as you are pleased. So if you want to buy, I am selling," according to extracts of the book, which is to be published in 20 countries, published in the British newspaper.

Slahi, 44, swore allegiance to al-Qaeda after travelling to Afghanistan in the 1990s and fought against the Soviet-backed regime, but claims he left the group in 1992. He was detained following the September 11 attacks on suspicion of involvement in an unsuccessful plot to bomb Los Angeles in 1999. He was taken to Guantanamo in 2002 after being interrogated in Mauritania, Jordan and Afghanistan.

Describing the toll of life inside the jail at the US base in Cuba, Slahi said: "I started to hallucinate and hear voices as clear as crystal. I heard my family in a casual familial conversation.... I heard Koran readings in a heavenly voice.

"I heard music from my country. Later on the guards used these hallucinations and started talking with funny voices through the plumbing, encouraging me to hurt the guard and plot an escape. I was on the edge of losing my mind."