Comments on: Abu Zubaydah: The Futility Of Torture and A Trail of Broken Lives

By: “High-Value Detainee” Abu Zubaydah Blinded By Bush Administration - OpEd

“High-Value Detainee” Abu Zubaydah Blinded By Bush Administration - OpEd — Thu, 19 May 2011 20:24:14 +0000

[...] Confirms FBI’s Doubts. Since then, I have returned to his story repeatedly, in articles including Abu Zubaydah: The Futility Of Torture and A Trail of Broken Lives and Who Authorized The Torture of Abu Zubaydah? (in 2009) and Abu Zubaydah: Tortured for Nothing, [...]

By: Dick Cheney And The Death Of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi by Andy Worthington « Dandelion Salad

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 03:40:39 +0000

[...] (a form of controlled drowning) on three “high-value detainees” — Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah, and Abdul Rahim al-Nashiri — Vanity Fair published an article in which other informed sources [...]

By: Revolution in Egypt – and the Hypocrisy of the US and the West « Dandelion Salad

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 07:25:35 +0000

[...] The West’s hypocrisy in the “War on Terror” also included Tunisia and the brutal regime of President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali (whose fall is leading to hopes that the terrorist stigma attached to his former political opponents might now be exposed for what it was), and, of course, Syria, whose fearsome Mukhabarat (secret police) tortured at least nine CIA “ghost prisoners” in 2001 and 2002, even as Bush’s speechwriters were including the regime in an “axis of evil.” A few of these prisoners — who included teenagers rendered from Pakistan — have resurfaced (most notably, the Canadian citizen Maher Arar), but others remain unaccounted for. [...]

By: Algerian in Guantánamo Loses Habeas Petition for Being in a Guest House with Abu Zubaydah « Eurasia Review

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 14:18:54 +0000

[...] fortunate. A handful of other prisoners seized with Zubaydah, including at least one teenager, were rendered to a torture prison in Syria, never to be seen or heard from [...]

By: On Bush’s Waterboarding Claims, UK Media Loses Its Moral Compass « Dandelion Salad

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 02:11:49 +0000

[...] Coleman’s analysis was, essentially, reinforced by a Justice Department official who told the Washington Post in 2009: [Abu Zubaydah] “was not [...]

By: USA: Der Folter-Fall Abu Zubaydah « Ticker

USA: Der Folter-Fall Abu Zubaydah « Ticker — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 05:15:28 +0000

[...] By Andy Worthington In the history of the “War on Terror,” few stories are as disturbing as that of Abu Zubaydah. Seized in Pakistan in March 2002, Zubaydah was initially regarded as a “high-value detainee” of such significance that the Bush administration conceived its torture program specifically for use on him. But the case against him has steadily unraveled over the years, as officials — first in the Bush administration, and then under President Obama — have conceded that his significance was monstrously overstated, and that he was not a member of al-Qaeda, was not involved in planning any international terrorist attacks, and had no advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. With this in mind, it is distressing to note that, last month, in the case of Sufyian Barhoumi, an Algerian seized with Zubaydah, who lost his habeas corpus petition last September, the Court of Appeals in Washington D.C. drew on discredited information about Zubaydah to overstate his importance, and to justify Barhoumi’s ongoing detention. The Circuit Court also drew on the diary of a previously unknown associate of Zubaydah’s to present another view of Zubaydah — as the leader of a militia allied with al-Qaeda — to justify Barhoumi’s detention, and, by extension, that of Zubaydah himself, even though there are doubts about the government’s interpretation of the diary, and the whereabouts of the diary’s author are unknown. On June 22, when a panel of judges led by Judge David S. Tatel upheld Barhoumi’s detention, the ruling was superficially unsurprising. Barhoumi was not only seized in the house raid in Faisalabad, Pakistan on March 28, 2002, that led to the capture Abu Zubaydah, along with other alleged terror suspects, but he had also conceded, in publicly available documents from Guantánamo, that he had attended military training camps in Afghanistan. This, on its own, may not have been sufficient for Barhoumi’s detention to be upheld, but last September, when his habeas petition was denied, Judge Rosemary Collyer provided another reason. Although she noted that Barhoumi “said that he is not now and has never been a member of al-Qaeda,” and added, “I have no reason not to believe that,” she nevertheless concluded that “he was with an associated force that was engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners and therefore was properly detained.” At the time, Judge Collyer’s unclassified opinion was not made publicly available (and has still not been made available), and the quotes above are from the court transcript that was eventually unearthed by researchers at ProPublica (PDF). It was not, therefore, until the Circuit Court upheld his detention last month (PDF) that the details of this “associated force” were revealed as a militia that was allegedly maintained by Abu Zubaydah, and it was also revealed that the Circuit Court was relying on a long-discredited opinion of Zubaydah as the leader of a training camp in Afghanistan and an associate of Osama bin Laden. How the case against Abu Zubaydah collapsed What is troubling about this is the fact that, since Zubaydah’s capture, when Donald Rumsfeld described it as “well established” that he was “a close associate” of Osama bin Laden, “and if not the number two, very close to the number two person in the organization”), the government has steadily backed away from these claims, as accounts have emerged that thoroughly discredit the allegations. These include devastating statements by Dan Coleman, the FBI’s senior expert on al-Qaeda. Coleman and his FBI colleagues had access to Zubaydah’s diaries, in which they found entries in the voices of three people — a boy, a young man and a middle-aged alter ego — which recorded in numbing detail, over the course of ten years, “what people ate, or wore, or trifling things they said,” and Coleman’s conclusion, which he told his superiors, was, “This guy is insane, certifiable, split personality.” That was reported in 2006, and in December 2007, Coleman followed up, describing Zubaydah as a “safehouse keeper” who “claimed to know more about al-Qaeda and its inner workings than he really did,” and explaining how he and others at the FBI had concluded not only that he had severe mental problems — particularly because of a head injury that he had suffered in 1992 — but also that this explained why he was regarded with suspicion by the al-Qaeda leadership. “They all knew he was crazy, and they knew he was always on the damn phone,” Coleman said. “You think they’re going to tell him anything?” This analysis was, essentially, reinforced last March by a Justice Department official who spoke anonymously to the Washington Post. As I reported at the time: [...]

By: reboot the republic » Abu Zubaydah: Tortured for Nothing

reboot the republic » Abu Zubaydah: Tortured for Nothing — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 12:57:42 +0000

[...] Ron Suskind’s book The One Percent Doctrine was published, which explained, as I described it in an article a year ago, that: Zubaydah “turned out to be mentally ill and nothing like the pivotal figure they supposed [...]

By: Crapaganda.com » Abu Zubaydah: Tortured For Nothing

Crapaganda.com » Abu Zubaydah: Tortured For Nothing — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 13:14:24 +0000

[...] Suskind’s book The One Percent Doctrine was published, which explained, as I described it in an article a year ago, that: Zubaydah “turned out to be mentally ill and nothing like the pivotal figure they supposed [...]

By: Abu Zubaydah’s Torture Diary by Andy Worthington « Dandelion Salad

Abu Zubaydah’s Torture Diary by Andy Worthington « Dandelion Salad — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 07:32:40 +0000

[...] 2002), I reproduce below a transcript of the statements made by the “high-value detainee” Abu Zubaydah during interviews with representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross, following [...]

By: Abu Zubaydah’s Torture Diary « freedetainees.org

Abu Zubaydah’s Torture Diary « freedetainees.org — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:36:24 +0000