Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, better known as Abu Zubaydah, is a Palestinian who was born in Saudi Arabia. He is also a victim of the US led “global war on terror”, launched after the 11 September attacks, in 2001.
Abu Zubaydah falsely labelled as ‘third in command’ in al-Qaeda
In 2006, Abu Zubaydah was transferred to Guantanamo Bay, the US military base in Cuba, after being held for four years in various CIA secret “black sites”. He remains there today, unlawfully and arbitrarily detained, two decades later.
Abu Zubaydah was captured, in 2002, during a joint raid by Pakistani security services and the CIA, in Pakistan. The US accused him of being “third-in-command in al-Qaeda, and said he was involved in 9/11. They flew him across national borders to secret sites, where he was detained in various countries, and subjected to extreme abuse and torture, during interrogations by foreign governments. This continued for four years.
These secret, extrajudicial detention facilities, run by the CIA, were known as “black sites”. The US abducted their “suspected terrorists”, and forcibly transferred and covertly detained them at these sites.
Mansoor Adayfi was kidnapped in Afghanistan as a teenager, sold to the U.S and sent to Guantanamo in 2002. He spent 14 years there, without being convicted of any crime. Today he works closely with former Guantanamo detainees, helping them reintegrate and rehabilitate. He also fights for the freedom of those still there. Adayfi tells the Canary:
The global war on terror is a manufactured big lie, to detain and torture. It doesn’t matter who you are. What matters to them is the label they give you to justify the abuse, torture, corruption, invasion… you name it! These places have been created outside of the law, outside of the judicial system, outside of humanity. There’s no accountability, no limitations. Guantanamo’s purpose was not justice, but an experimenting lab on prisoners.
54+ governments involved in the CIA torture programmes
These secret black site operations, entirely conducted outside of the United States, were only made possible through the active participation of foreign governments. According to a report titled Globalising Torture, from the Global Society Justice, it was not only the US that was responsible for the serious human rights abuses inflicted on detainees. At least 54 other foreign governments were complicit in various ways in the CIA secret detention and “extraordinary rendition” operations.
The UK government provided its airspace and airports for use by flights associated with these CIA operations. The UK also gave the CIA intelligence about various individuals, and interrogated them. In the case of Abu Zubaydah, MI5 and MI6 submitted questions for his interrogation. This occurred even though the government knew he was being tortured. The UK is one of seven countries complicit in his torture and abuse. So earlier this month, January 2026, the government agreed to pay a “substantial” sum of money to him. Abu Zubaydah has previously also won cases against Poland and Lithuania for the role they played in his detention and mistreatment.
Helen Duffy is an international lawyer who has represented Abu Zubaydah since 2008. She tells the Canary:
There’s no legal basis for his detention. He’s never been charged with any crime, he has not even had any court decide on the lawfulness of his detention. There’s been no due process of law, but he was held for 24 years.
CIA paid two psychologists $80M to develop torture techniques
The “black sites”, including Guantanamo Bay, were part of the CIA’s post-9/11 “Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation” (RDI) programme. This allowed the use of so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EITs) on detainees, developed and taught to the CIA by two psychologists, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen. They were paid more than $80 million for working on this programme, which lasted from 2002 to 2009.
Abu Zubaydah was told during this period that he was one of the first to receive these interrogation techniques, so no rules applied. He said it “felt like they were experimenting and trying out techniques to be used later on other people”.
Just between 4 and 23 August 2002, Abu Zubaydah was subjected to combined enhanced interrogation techniques almost 24 hours a day. EITs included confining him for more than 260 hours in a coffin-size box. “Mock executions” also took place, and he was waterboarded more than 80 times, on one occasion having to be resuscitated. Before this, he had been kept in isolation for 47 days.
He was also kept naked in a cold cell for six to eight weeks. And he was deprived of sleep for up to 180 hours. “Rectal rehydration” and “rectal feeding”, without medical necessity, were also forced on him.
Adayfi says:
Abu Zubaydah is one of the most tortured men in the CIA and FBI history. He is a victim not just of the torture programme, but also the secrecy, the lies and the manipulation
Guantanamo’s enhanced Interrogation techniques much more brutal than CIA admits
According to the “Senate Torture Report“, published in 2014, the interrogations amounted to a torture programme. They were “far worse than the CIA represented to policymakers and others”. The report claimed the EITs were not even effective, and “regularly resulted in fabricated information”.
Abu Zubaydah, never provided the required information, and CIA officers later concluded he did not possess it.
Adayfi says:
Abu Zubaydah said he was innocent from the beginning, but they sold the narrative that he was the worst of the worst. After he was sent to Guantanamo, the US agreed — he’s not a terrorist, he’s not al-Qaeda or the Taliban. The man is innocent. They admitted this years ago, but they wouldn’t release him.
Abu Zubaydah is one of 15 detainees still imprisoned at Guantanamo, and one of three categorised as “forever prisoners”. Although there have been no charges or trial against these men they can be detained for the remainder of their lives, according to the US.
In 2023, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued a formal opinion about Abu Zubaydah’s ongoing detention. The group claims it amounts to ‘torture,’ a ‘crime against humanity’ and discrimination, and he must be released immediately.
Continued Guantanamo detention to silence him as a witness
Duffy says:
It’s quite incomprehensible at this point , why he hasn’t been released, it’s legally and morally wrong. It’s a political choice on the part of the US. It’s impossible to see at this stage, that there can be any security basis for refusing to release him.
There is no evidence of Abu Zubaydah committing any crimes, and all previous allegations made against him from the early days of his detention have been dropped.
Duffy argues:
Obviously it’s the often toxic politics that surround security. Particularly when the language of terrorism is used, we often get into this zone of irrational and immoral behaviour. And Abu Zubaydah’s case really epitomises that.
The CIA has gone to considerable efforts to prevent evidence of their appalling human rights abuses ever reaching the public. In 2005, then-CIA deputy director for operations Jose Rodriguez, ordered the destruction of 92 video tapes depicting the use of “enhanced interrogation”, or torture techniques, on two suspects. 90 of these were of Abu Zubaydah.
His continued detention serves only one purpose — to prevent a main witness to the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation” programme from giving evidence about the brutal torture he endured and the officials involved.
The most important thing now is to secure Abu Zubaydah’s release. This is something the US is legally obliged to do. While the compensation from the UK government is welcome, there has been no real justice for him, as the violations against him continue.
No one has ever been held accountable for Abu Zubaydah’s unlawful detention or torture. There has also never even been an investigation into the role of states, including the UK, in the rendition and torture programme. Even the recent settlement from the UK was not accompanied by any recognition of wrongdoing.
Impunity and unaccountability
Duffy says:
This kind of impunity is staggering, and it’s dangerous. It sends the message that your role in systematic torture and secret detention will be met with impunity, depending on who you are, obviously.
As governments quietly settle cases and redact records, Abu Zubaydah remains in a legal and moral limbo of the US government’s making, two decades after he was first disappeared into the CIA’s secret prison system. His continued imprisonment is not about security, but about avoiding accountability and justice, and stands as a symbol of the impunity defining the “war on terror.”
Featured image via the Canary
By Charlie Jaay
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