UK pays terror suspect tortured by US
The British government has agreed to pay out a “substantial” sum to settle a lawsuit over its intelligence services’ role in the torture of a terror suspect who is effectively indefinitely detained by the US.
Abu Zubaydah, whom the George W. Bush administration once claimed was a senior Al Qaeda figure, has been held without trial in US custody, including at the military base in Guantanamo, Cuba since his capture in 2002.
The UK has agreed to settle a civil case that accused British intelligence of supplying questions to American interrogators despite knowing Zubaydah was being mistreated, his legal team announced Monday.
Born Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, Zubaydah, 54 is a Saudi-born Palestinian citizen who reportedly fought in the US-backed anti-Soviet insurgency in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Captured in Pakistan in March 2002, he spent over four years in CIA “black sites” – secret detention facilities in foreign countries used for what the Bush administration called “enhanced interrogation.”
US officials described Zubaydah as a “guinea pig” for the widely criticized program, though later retracted claims about his high-level role in Al Qaeda. He was transferred to Guantanamo in September 2006, allegedly suffering more abuses there, and is now one of its “forever prisoners,” whom the US justice system refuses to either charge or release.
Zubaydah previously successfully sued Poland and Lithuania for hosting American black sites. The UK declined to comment on the settlement due to its sensitive nature.
International lawyer Helen Duffy, who has represented Zubaydah since 2008, said: “I am hopeful that the payment of the substantial sums will enable him to do that and to support himself when he’s in the outside world.” She stressed, however, that his proposed release depends on US goodwill.
