His attorneys have announced that a settlement has been reached with Abu Zubaydah, a Guantanamo “forever prisoner”
The British government has consented to pay a “substantial” amount to resolve legal action concerning its intelligence agencies’ involvement in the torture of a terrorism suspect who remains in indefinite US detention.
Abu Zubaydah, who the George W. Bush administration previously alleged was a high-ranking Al Qaeda member, has remained in US custody without trial, including at the Guantanamo Bay military facility in Cuba, following his 2002 capture.
British authorities have agreed to resolve a civil lawsuit alleging that UK intelligence provided interrogation questions to American officials while aware that Zubaydah was being abused, according to his legal representatives who made the announcement on Monday.
Zubaydah, 54, whose birth name is Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, is a Palestinian citizen born in Saudi Arabia who allegedly participated in the US-supported anti-Soviet resistance in Afghanistan during the 1980s. After being apprehended in Pakistan in March 2002, he was held for more than four years in CIA “black sites”—clandestine detention centers overseas utilized for what the Bush administration termed “enhanced interrogation.”
American officials labeled Zubaydah a “guinea pig” for the extensive program, though they subsequently withdrew assertions regarding his senior position within Al Qaeda. He was moved to Guantanamo in September 2006, where he reportedly endured further mistreatment, and he is currently among the facility’s “forever prisoners”—individuals whom the US legal system has neither indicted nor freed.
Zubaydah has previously won lawsuits against Poland and Lithuania for permitting US black sites on their territory. The British government refused to provide comment on the settlement, citing its sensitive nature.
Helen Duffy, an international attorney who has represented Zubaydah since 2008, stated: “I am optimistic that receiving these substantial payments will allow him to achieve that and to provide for himself once he is in the outside world.” She emphasized, however, that any potential release remains contingent upon US cooperation.