In November 2022 (and publicly released on April 28, 2023), the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which has no enforcement powers, urged the U.S. to release immediately a prisoner (Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Husayn) who was captured in Pakistan in 2002 and became the first prisoner at a CIA “black site” (secret prison) where he was waterboarded and thereafter held until he was transferred to the Guantanamo prison in 2006. Ever since then he has been held there without charges. The U.S. has argued that although this prisoner was never a member of Al Qaeda, he allegedly helped jihadists reach Afghanistan for training before the 9/11 attacks.[1]
The U.N. Working Group found that this prisoner “had been denied a meaningful review of his detention and so was being unlawfully held. The appropriate remedy would be to release Mr. Zubaydah immediately and accord him an enforceable right to compensation and other reparations, in accordance with international law.’” Before his transfer to Guantanamo, he was held in CIA sites in Afghanistan, Poland, Morocco, Lithuania and Thailand; in the last of which he was waterboarded, deprived of sleep and confined in a coffin-like box.
His attorney, “Lt. Col. Chantell M. Higgins, a U.S. Marine, said this condemnation should provide “a greater incentive for the United States to find a place for him to go, and release him.”
Another attorney and specialist in international human rights,, Helen Duffy, who brought his case before this U.N. body, said that he “has a well-founded fear of further violations if sent to Saudi [Arabia, where he was born],and we hope to engage with the United States and other states on alternative sites of relocation.”
Colonel Higgins suggested Qatar might be a suitable location as it “has been generous and successfully taken foreigners detained at Guantanamo.”
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[1] Rosenberg, U.N. Body Demands Release of Guantanamo Prisoner Who Was Tortured by the C.I.A., N.Y. Times (May 1, 2023). See also U.S. Should Release All Guantanamo Prisoners and Close Down, dwkcommentaries.com (April 29, 2023).