Lithuania has paid 100,000 euros (US$113,377) to Abu Zubaydah, the Guantanamo detainee known as the “forever prisoner,” in compensation for having allowed the CIA to hold him at a secret site outside Vilnius where he was subjected to forms of torture.
The payment comes more than three years after the European Court of Human Rights ordered the Lithuanian government to pay compensation for violating European laws banning the use of torture.
HELD FOR 20 YEARS
Photo: AP
It marks a significant shift in the treatment of Zubaydah, who has been detained by the US without charge for more than 20 years.
Zubaydah was captured in Pakistan six months after Sept. 11, 2001. The CIA and lawyers for the administration of then-US president George W. Bush attempted to justify his torture by claiming he was a very senior figure in al-Qaeda. It emerged that he was not a member of the organization and he has never been charged with involvement in 9/11.
For much of the time since his arrest, Zubaydah has been held incommunicado, at the insistence of the CIA as part of its efforts to prevent details of his torture from becoming public.
In the past few months, there have been other signs of a shifting attitude toward Zubaydah and the torture that was inflicted upon him by CIA agents and contractors.
In October, the US Supreme Court heard arguments in a case in which the US government is seeking to block two CIA contractors from testifying in Poland about torture Zubaydah suffered in 2002 and 2003 at a secret, or “black,” site in that country.
In the course of the hearing, several of the justices, including conservatives, broke a legal taboo by openly using the word “torture.”
CODENAME VIOLET
In Zubaydah’s case against Lithuania, which was led on the European side by his lawyer, Helen Duffy, the European Court of Human Rights heard that Zubaydah was held at a CIA black site in that country from February 2005 to March 2006.
The site, codenamed Violet, was on the outskirts of Vilnius.
The most brutal forms of torture endured by Zubaydah occurred in 2002, when he was held at a CIA black site in Thailand.
An entire program of torture, euphemistically referred to by the CIA as “enhanced interrogation techniques,” was devised for the prisoner by two psychologists under contract to the agency.
Zubaydah was waterboarded — a type of controlled drowning — at least 83 times in August 2002, as well as being placed in a coffin-sized box for days on end.
European judges heard that Zubaydah was unlikely to have suffered from the harshest forms of torture while in Lithuania.
However, he was subjected to techniques that still amounted to torture, lawyers argued, including sensory and sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, loud noise and harsh light.
The money transferred by Lithuania is in a bank account. Zubaydah is unable to receive the sum given his detention in Guantanamo and because his assets have been frozen by the US Department of the Treasury.
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
‘SHOCK TACTIC’: The dismissal of Yang mirrors past cases such as Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has fired his vice premier, compared him to a goat and railed against “incompetent” officials, state media reported yesterday, in a rare and very public broadside against apparatchiks at the opening of a critical factory. Vice Premier Yang Sung-ho was sacked “on the spot,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said, in a speech in which Kim attacked “irresponsible, rude and incompetent leading officials.” “Please, comrade vice premier, resign by yourself when you can do it on your own before it is too late,” Kim reportedly said. “He is ineligible for an important duty. Put simply, it was
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Sunday announced a deal with the chief of Kurdish-led forces that includes a ceasefire, after government troops advanced across Kurdish-held areas of the country’s north and east. Syrian Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi said he had agreed to the deal to avoid a broader war. He made the decision after deadly clashes in the Syrian city of Raqa on Sunday between Kurdish-led forces and local fighters loyal to Damascus, and fighting this month between the Kurds and government forces. The agreement would also see the Kurdish administration and forces integrate into the state after months of stalled negotiations on
RSS