Justices Gorsuch and Sotomayor Demand ‘Straight Answer’ About Whether Guantánamo Prisoner Can Testify About Torture at CIA ‘Black Sites’ – By Elura Nanois (Law and Crime) / OCt 6 2021
The Supreme Court of the United States heard oral arguments Wednesday in United States v. Zubaydah, a case begun by the Donald Trump administration and continued under President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice over whether the federal government must disclose information about secret overseas CIA prisons known as “black sites.”
Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, better known as Abu Zubaydah, is the first CIA prisoner to undergo extensive torture. The Guantánamo Bay prisoner, a Palestinian, was alleged to have been an al-Qaeda operative involved in the planning of the 9/11 terror attacks, but his attorneys claim that the uncharged allegations against him derive from false, coerced confessions. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence stated flatly: “The CIA later concluded that Abu Zubaydah was not a member of al-Qaida.” The so-called “torture report” chronicled his waterboarding, stress positions, sleep deprivation and other harsh treatment extensively.
Zubaydah was captured in 2002 in Pakistan, then moved around CIA “black sites” around the globe where he was subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques” before being moved to Guantánamo Bay where he has been held in a military prison since 2006. Zubaydah spent ten months in a location said to have been in Poland, where he was allegedly subjected to repeated torture.
Zubaydah, through counsel, seeks a court order in conjunction with a Polish case to compel the U.S. government to turn over discovery materials about the involvement of two former CIA contractors—psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen—who worked on the CIA program. The federal government, however, argues that the information is protected by the “state secrets privilege,” which allows the government to keep secret information that would compromise national security interests.
