CHICAGO — Hundreds of miles from his normal stomping grounds, a former Chicago police detective was in a cell in the notorious Guantanamo Bay detention center, allegedly screaming at a prisoner who had been waterboarded with saltwater until he threw up.

“I told you not to f--- with me,” Detective Richard Zuley reportedly yelled. “I told you not to f--- with me.”

During an unusual evidentiary hearing Monday at the Leighton Criminal Court Building, former Guantanamo detainee Mohamedou Ould Slahi described the scene while giving testimony from the Netherlands via video. He accused the retired detective of orchestrating a horrific program of torture that resulted in him falsely confessing to planning to attack a Canadian tower he said he had never actually heard of at the time.

As Chicago continues to grapple with a legacy of torture by some detectives, Zuley’s record as an interrogator at one of the country’s most infamous sites for human rights abuses is drawing renewed scrutiny by defendants challenging convictions they say were coerced.

In particular, Zuley’s time on a special assignment there, called into duty as a lieutenant in the Navy Reserve, in the early 2000s is critical to a claim of innocence by a Chicago man who is seeking to overturn his murder conviction, alleging that he was tortured by Zuley and a crew of detectives here in his home city.

Anthony Garrett, 67, was convicted of murdering Dantrell Davis, a 7-year-old boy who was shot in the Cabrini-Green housing complex while walking to school with his mother on Oct. 13, 1992.

During the evidentiary hearing before Judge Adrienne Davis, Garrett’s attorneys drew connections between the investigation into the boy’s tragic killing and torture at the U.S. detention center in Cuba — particularly in the case of Slahi’s well-known story, which was adapted into a Hollywood movie starring Jodie Foster.

“Over 30 years ago, Anthony Garrett falsely confessed to murder of Dantrell Davis,” said Garrett’s attorney, Jennifer Blagg, in her opening statement. “Why did he do that? Because he was tortured.”

But Cook County prosecutors, defending the conviction, said Garrett is guilty and called Slahi a “sworn enemy” of the United States.

“The People want you to know the rest of the story, judge,” Assistant State’s Attorney William Aring Meyer said.

Testifying for more than two hours, Slahi, a Mauritanian national who was detained at Guantanamo between 2002 and 2016, recounted, at times vividly, his early years at Guantanamo, saying that, at first, he was questioned by the FBI and treated relatively well.

That all changed, though, he said, when the FBI interrogations failed to yield results and Zuley’s team took over.

In court, Slahi identified a photograph of Zuley, who went by “Captain Collins” in the detention center.

While detained, Slahi said he was beaten and sexually assaulted by members of Zuley’s team. He was kept in rooms where they blared music on a loop and played strobe lights.

He almost died once, he said, when the team was pouring water on him in a freezing cold room.

“(The interrogator) told me he would not stop until I talked to him,” Slahi said. “Little did he know, I could not talk because I was frozen. My lips were frozen.”

At one point, he testified, Zuley told him the U.S. government had arrested his mother and put her in a prison for men.

“We cannot guarantee her safety,” Slahi said Zuley told him.

During this time, he was slowly losing his mind, he said, hallucinating that his mother and sister were speaking in his cell.

Eventually, he said, he confessed to planning to attack Toronto’s CN Tower after the location was fed to him by another interrogator.

Slahi was never charged with a crime, though, and was eventually released from Guantanamo after a lengthy legal battle. He authored a memoir about his experience that was made into the 2021 film “The Mauritanian.”

During cross-examination, Meyer asked Slahi about his time fighting in Afghanistan in the early 1990s.

Slahi testified that he had previous associations with Al-Qaeda but cut ties long before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

“Did you get training in terrorism while you were there in Afghanistan?” Meyer asked.

“No,” Slahi replied.

Meyer also noted that Slahi could not say whether Zuley actually touched him. Slahi testified that he was often blindfolded.

Years earlier, Zuley was assigned to investigate 7-year-old Dantrell’s killing in the now demolished housing complex.

Police had arrested Garrett on a tip, according to a motion for post-conviction relief filed by Garrett, even though a security guard told police, during the arrest: “You have the wrong guy. He was with me.”

Garrett was interrogated for almost two days by retired Chicago police Detective Richard Zuley, along with then-Cmdr. William Callahan, Detective John Murray and other officers.

He eventually confessed, but he alleges in his motion that it was only after a period of intense physical and emotional coercion.

Zuley handcuffed Garrett to a wall, he alleges, then left the interrogation room while other officers beat him on the legs with a rubber hose.

“After the beating ended, Detective Zuley came back into the room and asked Garrett if he was “ready to tell us now,” the motion alleges.

During her opening statement, Blagg said that Zuley usually played the role of “good cop.”

Garrett was beaten again, the motion says. He later asked for an attorney, but Zuley said he didn’t need one, according to the motion.

After he was convicted by a jury and sentenced to 100 years in prison, Garrett told a judge: “Your Honor, I would like to say that my regrets goes out to Annette Freeman about her son, but they’ve convicted the wrong man.”

In 2023, the Illinois Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission, a body that reviews claims of police abuse, referred Garrett’s case to a Cook County judge for an evidentiary hearing, finding credible evidence of torture.

For years, Zuley has been the subject of allegations of torture in lawsuits and motions seeking to vacate convictions. Zuley could not be reached for comment, but he may be called to testify in the hearing, attorneys said.

Blagg told the judge eight men have been exonerated in connection to Zuley’s cases.

Meyer, though, argued to the judge that Garrett had no sign of bruises after his interrogation. Garrett told police, according to Meyer: “I beat a homicide in 1981 and I’ll beat this one too.”

But Garrett’s attorneys argue that Zuley has a demonstrated pattern of abuse and coercion across multiple cases, a practice that he then brought with him to Guantanamo.

“It is now known that the detectives and officers at Area 6, including Detective Zuley, used psychological manipulation, lies, threats, physical violence, and unreliable or made-up informants to elicit false confessions or coerce witness’s statements to ‘solve’ some of the City’s most high-profile cases,” Garrett’s motion says. “After that, the United States government exported Zuley’s coercive tactics to Guantanamo Bay, where he crafted a sadistic interrogation plan for Mohamedou Ould Slahi.”

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