Guantánamo Bay
The UK Supreme Court has ruled that Guantánamo “forever prisoner” Abu Zubaydah can sue the British government “over allegations that British intelligence services asked the CIA to put questions to him while he was being tortured in “black sites”. The supreme court said MI5 and MI6 were subject to the law of England and Wales and not – as the government had attempted to argue – the six different countries where Abu Zubaydah was held.” Prior to his detention at Guantánamo in 2006, the Palestinian prisoner who was kidnapped by the US in Pakistan in 2002, was “rendered” to torture at secret CIA torture facilities in Thailand, Lithuania, Poland, Morocco, Guantánamo Bay (at a secret facility there) and Afghanistan. He has never been tried or charged. He has successfully sued Poland and Lithuania for their collusion with the CIA in his torture at the European Court of Human Rights. Abu Zubaydah’s lawyers claim that “the UK intelligence services committed the civil wrongs of misfeasance in public office, conspiracy to injure, trespass to the person, false imprisonment and negligence […. Abu Zubaydah] alleges that the UK intelligence services sent numerous questions to the CIA to be used in interrogations, without seeking any assurances that he would not be tortured or mistreated or taking steps to discourage or prevent such treatment. He claims that at the black sites he was waterboarded on 83 occasions and also subjected to extreme sleep deprivation, confinement inside boxes, beatings, death threats, starvation, denial of medical care and no access to sanitation.”
https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2022-0083.html
The Periodic Review Board has denied the last Afghan prisoner, Muhammad Rahim, the chance to be cleared for release, claiming that he still poses a threat to the security of the USA; he has never been charged or tried at Guantánamo in over 17 years of detention there. He is one of three of the remaining 30 prisoners who remain in indefinite detention.
The National Defense Authorization Act 2023 has allocated an initial $60 million for the construction of a new and modern healthcare facility but has maintained restrictions on the transfer of Guantánamo prisoners to prison facilities in the US and bars funding for their transfer to the US or other countries. In signing the law into force, President Joe Biden criticised these provisions stating: “Section 1033 of the Act continues to bar the use of funds appropriated to the Department of Defense to transfer Guantánamo Bay detainees to the custody or effective control of certain foreign countries. Section 1031 likewise would continue to prohibit the use of such funds to transfer Guantánamo Bay detainees into the United States. It is the longstanding position of the executive branch that these provisions unduly impair the ability of the executive branch to determine when and where to prosecute Guantánamo Bay detainees and where to send them upon release. In some circumstances, these provisions could make it difficult to comply with the final judgment of a court that has directed the release of a detainee on writ of habeas corpus, including by constraining the flexibility of the executive branch with respect to its engagement in delicate negotiations with foreign countries over the potential transfer of detainees. I urge the Congress to eliminate these restrictions as soon as possible.”
