The CIA torture program began 24 years ago today

Abu Zubaydah, seized in a raid in Pakistan, was its first victim. 24 years later, he’s still held at Guantánamo, without charge or trial.

A recent photo of Abu Zubaydah, taken at Guantánamo by representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Today, as I write in my new article for the Close Guantánamo website, It’s 24 Years Since the U.S. Torture Program Began With the Capture of Abu Zubaydah, “marks the 24th anniversary of one of the bleakest episodes in the whole of the ‘war on terror’ — the storming, by US and Pakistani forces, of a guest house in Faisalabad, Pakistan, and the abduction and disappearance of its residents; most prominently, Abu Zubaydah, a Saudi-born Palestinian and the gatekeeper of an independent training camp in Afghanistan, who had been incorrectly assessed as a prominent figure in Al-Qaeda, even though some FBI analysts, at least, were aware that this was a spurious claim.”

Within days, Abu Zubaydah became the first victim of the CIA’s post-9/11 torture program, flown to a CIA “black site” in Thailand, the first of several “black site” prisons in which he was held for four a half years before his eventual transfer to Guantánamo, with 13 other “high-value detainees”, also held in “black sites”, in September 2006.

Subjected to outrageous torture, including, on 83 occasions, waterboarding, which wrecked his health, both mentally and physically, he has, nevertheless, never been charged with a crime, and is one of three men still held at Guantánamo who are rightly regarded as “forever prisoners.”

Although the US authorities initially alleged that he was the number 3 in Al-Qaeda, with knowledge of the 9/11 attacks, they have, over the years, walked back from all their claims, but they still refuse to release him, even though their actions have been condemned in the Senate Intelligence Committee torture report, in two rulings by the European Court of Human Rights, and in a devastating opinion in 2023 by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, who were so appalled by his treatment that they demanded his immediate release, and the payment of compensation.

The Working Group also expressed “grave concern” that the very basis of the detention system at Guantánamo — involving “widespread or systematic imprisonment or other severe deprivation of liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law” — “may constitute crimes against humanity.”

Under Donald Trump, of course, there is no credible hope that the flagrant injustice of his continuing imprisonment without charge or trial will be addressed, but, as I note, “Trump, hopefully, will not be with us forever, and it must be hoped that the next US government will recognize that, if nothing else, they need to free the six men still held who have never been charged — three already approved for release, and three others, including Abu Zubaydah, who are held as ‘forever prisoners.’”

As I also explain, “Any future administration that recognizes the need to reclaim some of the US’s fundamentally endangered rights should act decisively to free these men, and to find new homes for them if, like Abu Zubaydah, they cannot be safely repatriated”, adding, “It’s time for us to start thinking seriously about which countries might want to help the US to finally bring a just resolution to the appalling and otherwise unending injustice suffered by Abu Zubaydah.”

Read the full article here.

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