The United Kingdom agreed to pay a “substantial sum” to settle a lawsuit brought by Abu Zubaydah, a Guantanamo Bay detainee who alleged that U.K. intelligence agencies were complicit in his torture at secret U.S. interrogation sites, his lawyer said Monday.
Helen Duffy, representing Zubaydah, said the confidential settlement was symbolically and practically significant in light of the “intolerable suffering” Zubaydah endured. She urged the U.K. to press for the immediate release of Zubaydah and of others held without charge more than 25 years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
In remarks highlighted by the Associated Press, Duffy said: “This case is deeply relevant today, as some states ride roughshod over international law, and the world looks to others to respond.” She added there were “critical lessons about the cost of cooperating with the U.S. or other allies flouting international norms,” and said it was “more important than ever that human rights and states international obligations are respected, and violations are met with reparation and accountability.”
The U.K. Foreign Office declined comment, saying it would neither confirm nor deny intelligence matters.
Zubaydah was captured in Pakistan in 2002 and was thought to be a high-ranking member of al-Qaida, according to the AP report. The same account said he was tortured at CIA black sites abroad before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay in 2006.
The AP said Zubaydah was held at CIA black sites in Poland and Lithuania, citing the European Court of Human Rights. It also said a U.S. Senate report found that he was waterboarded more than 80 times in a month at one point and confined over 11 days in a coffin-size box, among other mistreatment.
A parliamentary committee found in 2018, the AP said, that U.K. security and intelligence services were aware Zubaydah was being tortured but continued to provide questions for the CIA without seeking assurances of his condition.
Dominic Grieve, a lawyer and former member of the House of Commons who chaired a parliamentary inquiry into detainee abuse, said the payout was very unusual but that Zubaydah was clearly wronged. In comments to the BBC, Grieve said, “Americans were behaving in a way that should have given us cause for real concern,” and added, “We should have raised it with the United States and, if necessary, closed down cooperation, but we failed to do that for a considerable period of time.”
Zubaydah remains in legal limbo, the AP said, held at Guantanamo as a security risk but without charges or conviction. In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed his lawsuit seeking testimony from two former CIA contractors, rejecting it on the basis that doing so would expose state secrets despite much of the information having been widely reported.