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Archive recording of the "eternal prisoner" Abu Subaida
Photo: AP
Lithuania compensated the Guantanamo prisoner Abu Subaida with 100,000 euros for temporarily allowing the US secret service CIA to lock the prisoner in a secret facility outside the capital Vilnius.
The "Guardian" reports.
According to this, Lithuania follows with the payment of a claim that the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) had made against the country more than three years ago.
Abu Subaida, whose real name is Zain al-Abidin Mohammed Hussein, is said to have been locked up in the secret prison in Lithuania from February 2005 to March 2006 and also tortured.
The ECHR awarded the man compensation for having violated European law by allowing the CIA to operate secret prisons and torture in the country.
According to the report, Abu Subaida is one of the "eternal prisoners" in the US Guantanamo detention center in Cuba.
According to the Guardian, he was caught six months after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in Pakistan.
The then US administration headed by George W. Bush and the CIA had justified his imprisonment and torture with the fact that he was a leading figure in the terrorist group Al-Qaeda.
However, it later emerged that Abu Subaida was not part of the group. He was never charged for his alleged involvement in the terrorist attacks. Nevertheless, he has been imprisoned for more than 20 years and has been denied any contact with the outside world for years. In August 2002 alone he is said to have been mistreated at least 83 times with the notorious »waterboarding«. A few years ago he had already shown in disturbing drawings how he was tortured as part of the CIA's "extended interrogation techniques".
According to Abu Subaida's lawyers, the payment of the compensation by Lithuania is a sign that the US is changing its position in dealing with the Guantanamo detainees.
"The situation is much less isolated from the outside world when you pay someone 100,000 euros and the whole world knows about it," said Abu Subaida's lawyer Mark Denbeaux the Guardian.
Abu Subaida's lawyers suspect, according to the report, that Lithuania would probably not have made the payment without Washington's approval.
Abu Subaida cannot get the money
According to the report, however, Abu Subaida does not have access to the money as he is still in custody and his assets are frozen in the United States.
The sum was transferred to a bank account, according to the report.
The compensation comes a few days before Guantanamo’s 20th anniversary.
The torture prison accepted the first inmates on January 11, 2002.
fek
