UK Government Makes “Substantial” Payment to Guantánamo Prisoner Abu Zubaydah for Complicity in His Torture in CIA “Black Sites”
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In what amounts to an extraordinary admission of guilt regarding their historic complicity in the US’s post-9/11 torture program, it was announced on January 11, the 24th anniversary of the opening of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, that the British government has reached a “substantial” out-of-court settlement with Abu Zubaydah.
Abu Zubaydah, whose real name is Zain al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, was the first and most notorious victim of torture in the CIA’s post-9/11 program of extraordinary rendition and torture, which involved the establishment of secret torture facilities in pliant countries around the world — Thailand, Poland, Romania, Lithuania and Morocco — as well as in US facilities in Afghanistan.
He was held and tortured in all of these CIA “black sites” for three years and five months from April 2002 until his transfer, in September 2006, to Guantánamo, where he has been held ever since without charge or trial.
Murderous Intent and Breathtakingly Cynical Opportunism: The Contours of the Brexit-Fuelled New English Civil War
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The last few days have been a particularly dispiriting time to be living in Britain, as anger over the failure of the UK to leave the EU — anger deliberately provoked by our disgraceful Prime Minister Boris Johnson — has begun manifesting itself in threats of, and incitements to violence by prominent Brexiteers.
Boris Johnson, elected by just 92,153 Tory Party members, and with no majority in Parliament, is largely leading this thrust towards violent, and even murderous intent. Last week, Johnson, who is aggressively pushing for a no-deal Brexit on October 31, was compelled to recall Parliament, after the Supreme Court ruled that his decision to prorogue (suspend) it was unlawful, but when he appeared before MPs, he not only failed to apologise, but suggested that the court’s ruling was wrong.
Since then, he has begun suggesting that the justices should be approved by Parliament, which is alarming in and of itself, but the biggest immediate problem with his rhetoric is that it adds fuel to Brexiteers’ notion of judges as “the enemy”, and as “traitors”, which began when, after the referendum, the High Court supported a lawsuit brought by the businesswoman Gina Miller, establishing that Parliament had the right to be consulted before Article 50 (triggering the UK’s departure from the EU) was invoked by the then-Prime Minister Theresa May.
Who's still at Guantánamo?
