Urgent advocacy has been underway for months calling on the Biden administration to release our client ‘forever prisoner” abu Zubaydah, held without charge or trial for 23 years, and on other states to play their part.
In January, several UN mandates together took the unusual step of writing to Biden to call for his release, and urging other states to ensure there are locations for his safe transfer.
A few months before, the UN WG on Enforced Disappearance made clear that Lithuania (and by extension other responsible states) must finally meet their obligations of reparation, including “assistance with relocation”.
These developments built on the many international cases we brought on his behalf over the past 15 years, e.g. to the European court and UN bodies (available on this website). As a result, there is clarity as to the facts, the egregious violations of his rights and what needs to happen next. Several European court decisions have found European states responsible for housing CIA “black” torture sites where he was subject to brutal “enhanced interrogation techniques” from 2002-2006. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary detention in 2023 found his ongoing detention in Guantanamo today amounts to ongoing ‘torture,’ a ‘crime against humanity’ and discrimination; it found the US must “immediately release” him, and that the other states that share responsibility must step up and help make that happen.
In the past months and years, we have been reaching out to these and other states to engage with their moral and legal responsibilities. Thus far the response is a deafening silence, and the urgency grows.