Because he was tortured on its soil, Lithuania pays 100,000 euros to Abu Zubaydah, a Guantanamo prisoner

Lithuania paid 100,000 euros (about 113,000 dollars) in compensation to the prisoner Abu Zubaydah - whose name is Zain al-Abidin Muhammad Hussein - one of the detainees in Guantanamo Bay, because it earlier allowed CIA agents to detain and torture him in a secret location near the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius.

In a report published by the British newspaper "The Times" on Tuesday, writer Charlie Mitchell says that the compensation that the prisoner known as "Abu Zubaydah" received - and whom his lawyers call the "eternal prisoner" - came against the background of a ruling issued in 2018. The European Court of Human Rights, which considered that Lithuania had violated the European Convention on Human Rights by allowing the Americans to torture him on its soil.

Abu Zubaydah, who is currently 50 years old, was arrested by US authorities in Pakistan in 2002, months after the September 11, 2001 attacks. He was held in several secret CIA sites around the world before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay in 2006. The United States asserts that he belongs to al-Qaeda, but has not brought any charges against him.

According to the case, Abu Zubaydah was held at a secret CIA location in Lithuania from February 2005 to March 2006. His lawyers said that he was subjected to the most severe forms of torture likely not carried out in Lithuania, but that his detention there also amounted to the level of Torture crimes.

Lawyers assert that he was tortured in several ways, including sleep deprivation, cognitive isolation, loud noise and bright light, and was repeatedly tortured using waterboarding, including at least 83 times in August 2002, in addition to being held in coffin-size boxes for several Days in a row after his arrest.

Compensation with US approval

According to the Guardian newspaper, the compensation amount was deposited in a bank account, but Abu Zubaydah is unable to receive the amount because he is still being held in Guantanamo Bay, and his bank accounts are frozen by a decision of the US government.

However, his lawyers argue that it is unlikely that the Lithuanian government likely paid the amount without Washington's approval, indicating a shift in US treatment of Abu Zubaydah.

Mark Denbow, a member of Abu Zubaydah's defense team in the US says, "When you pay €100,000 to someone, it's not going to be kept secret, and everyone knows it. This move is consistent with the idea that the US is becoming more flexible about holding eternal prisoners."

"It is clear that the United States could have prevented Lithuania from paying this money, and the question is why didn't it do that?"

Although former President Barack Obama pledged to close it during his presidency, he failed to do so.

Last week, Amnesty International urged President Joe Biden to make good on his promise and close the prison.

Zine El Abidine Hussein, better known as Abu Zubaydah (Getty Images)

Who is Abu Zubaydah?

He was arrested in connection with the attacks of September 11, 2001, and was classified by the United States of America in 2002 as the third man in Al-Qaeda.

Birth and upbringing

March 12, 1971: Zain al-Abidin Muhammad Hussein - who bears another name, Abdul Hadi al-Wahhab - and his surname Abu Zubaydah, was born in Riyadh from a Palestinian family residing in Saudi Arabia.

He moved to the West Bank as a teenager, where he participated in the Palestinian demonstrations against Israel.

He studied Computer Science in Pune, Maharashtra, India.

Afghanistan war

1991: He traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan when he was 20 years old, and joined the civil war in Afghanistan (1989-1992) after the departure of the Soviet forces, and stayed there for years.

- The family did not support his decision to travel, so they sent his brother to him to persuade him to return, but he refused to change his position and preferred to stay in Afghanistan.

1992: Abu Zubaydah was injured in a mortar explosion that left shrapnel in his head and caused him to lose memory, in addition to losing the ability to speak for more than a year.

Abu Zubaydah eventually became a participant in the jihadist training camp known as "Camp Khalden", where he oversaw the reception of recruits, and during the early years of the American war in Afghanistan (2001-2021), the Bush administration described this camp as a training site for al-Qaeda.

March 2002: His name appeared in the media, and he was arrested during a joint raid by Pakistani forces with American units in southern Pakistan, where he was shot during his arrest and transferred to a hospital in Lahore, Pakistan, before being transferred to a secret detention facility belonging to the CIA Central "CIA" (CIA).

After that, he was transferred between the secret prisons of the United States in several countries.

- American intelligence believed that Abu Zubaydah was withholding information that threatens security during the first interrogation sessions, and suggested alternative interrogation methods as part of a special torture project that was its first victim, which included "waterboarding."

Immediately after his arrest, the Office of Legal Counsel of the Ministry of Justice issued two memoranda, one of which was secret, and the other was public stating that the interrogation methods adopted by the CIA did not violate the Federal Anti-Torture Law. ".

- In his published memoirs, former US President George W. Bush admitted to agreeing to the CIA's proposal to use techniques that included "waterboarding" on Abu Zubaydah.

According to the New York Times, "Abu Zubaydah was weak from his injuries, was stripped of his clothes, and was in a cell without a mattress or blanket, and he was standing or lying on the empty ground," and according to one of the officials, "the color of his body was blue. Abu Zubaydah.

Later, Abu Zubaydah told the International Committee of the Red Cross that while he was being drowned, he was striving to free himself from his shackles, which caused him pain in the places of the wounds, and that he vomited every time he was “choked”, and during that period he was close to death 4 times.

August 2003: he was subjected to waterboarding 83 times as part of a systematic torture that made him lose one of his eyes.

November 2005: Contrary to directives from the White House and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the National Secret Service at the CIA announced the destruction of the cruel torture videos that Abu Zubaydah had been subjected to since 2002.

September 2006: Abu Zubaydah was transferred to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp with the number "10016", where he was placed in highly-guarded "Camp No. 7" completely isolated from the world.