UK pays substantial sum' to tortured Guantanamo Bay detainee

"The UK has settled out of court by paying a substantial sum to a Guantanamo Bay detainee who was suing the government for its alleged complicity in his rendition and torture, according to the inmate's legal team. Lawyers for Abu Zubaydah have accused the British intelligence services of providing questions to his CIA interrogators to put to him while they were torturing him at a string of CIA black sites around the world where he was held between 2002 and 2006."

"He was one of the first detainees in the US war on terror to be tortured, and was subjected to a full range of what the Bush administration at the time termed enhanced interrogation techniques, in secret prisons in Thailand, Lithuania, Poland, Afghanistan, Morocco, and then the US base at Guantanamo Bay, on Cuba's southern coast. Now 54, he has been held in Guantanamo Bay without charge ever since, becoming one of its forever prisoners."

"Evidence of British complicity surfaced in two UK parliamentary reports in 2018, which revealed that MI5 and MI6 had fed questions to the CIA to ask Abu Zubaydah, in the knowledge that he was being tortured. The amount of financial settlement was not disclosed as part of the agreement with Abu Zubaydah, but his legal team described it as substantial. It is important, symbolically and practically, that UK pays for its role in our client's torture, said Helen Duffy, his international counsel."

The UK settled out of court by paying a substantial sum to a Guantanamo Bay detainee who sued for alleged complicity in his rendition and torture. Lawyers for Abu Zubaydah accused MI5 and MI6 of supplying questions to CIA interrogators while he was tortured at multiple CIA black sites between 2002 and 2006. He was held in secret prisons in Thailand, Lithuania, Poland, Afghanistan, Morocco, and Guantanamo Bay and subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques. Abu Zubaydah, a stateless Palestinian seized in Pakistan in March 2002, remains held without charge at age 54. UK parliamentary reports in 2018 documented evidence of British knowledge of his torture, and his legal team described the undisclosed settlement as substantial, saying the payment acknowledges the UK's role and highlights legal and moral risks of cooperation with the US when international law is violated.

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