On 10 April 2002, Mohamed was arrested at Pakistan's Karachi airport by Pakistani authorities as a suspected terrorist, while attempting to return to the UK under a false passport. Mohamed contends that he was subjected to extraordinary rendition by the United States, and entered a "ghost prison system" run by US intelligence agents in Pakistan, Morocco and Afghanistan. While he was held in Morocco, he said that interrogators tortured him by repeatedly using scalpels or razor blades to cut his penis and chest.