Zubaydah, one of 14 "high-value detainees" transferred to Guantà ¡namo from secret CIA prisons in September 2006, was held for four and a half years in prisons whose existence has been routinely denied by the United States, and by the countries who hosted secret prisons on behalf of the CIA -- Thailand, Poland, Romania, Lithuania and Morocco -- which were used to hold Zubaydah, 27 other "high-value detainees," and at least some of the other 66 "ghost prisoners" whose existence has been acknowledged by the US authorities.
The news from Poland provides hope following recent disappointments in the quest for accountability -- revelations by WikiLeaks that the Bush administration put pressure on the German goverment to drop an investigation into the kidnap and torture of Khaled El-Masri (a case of mistaken identity) and that the Obama administration put pressure on the Spanish government to drop an investigation into the crimes committed by six Bush administration lawyers, as well as the recent decision by the Lithuanian government to drop its own investigation into a secret prison -- or two secret prisons -- near Vilnius.
Reassuringly, the Spanish probe is still ongoing, and I recently appeared on Democracy Now! and at an event in New York with Katie Gallagher of the Center for Constitutional Rights, just after CCR and the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) had filed two submissions in Spain in connection with the investigation into the "Bush Six," and another investigation into Maj. Gen, Geoffrey Miller, the commander of Guantà ¡namo during the worst years of torture at the prison (2002 to 2004), who was later sent to "Gitmo-ize" faclities in Iraq, including, notoriously, Abu Ghraib.
However, the main focus for those seeking accountability remains Poland, where Abu Zubaydah is the second "victim" recognized by the Polish Prosecutor, following the recognition of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri (another of the 14 "high-value detainees" transferred to Guantà ¡namo in September 2006) as a victim in October last year. This, as Prosecutor Jerzy Mierzewski told the Associated Press, "entails a number of rights for the injured party," and as Reprieve and INTERIGHTS announced in a press release today (on behalf of their partners in the Zubaydah complaint, Polish lawyer Bartlomiej Jankowski and US lawyer Joe Margulies), victim status "allows Abu Zubaydah's lawyers to participate fully in the criminal investigation, which includes introducing further evidence, calling witnesses and taking part in the questioning of witnesses and suspects."
Although the secret prisons in Poland and Romania have been known about since November 2005, when the Washington Post first identified their existence, and Human Rights Watch then identified the countries involved, and their existence was then confirmed in a report for the Council of Europe in June 2007 (PDF) by CoE Rapporteur and Swiss Senator Dick Marty, based on two years' research and interviews with over 30 current and former members of the intelligence services in the United States and Europe, it was not until March 23, 2009 that the first details of specific flights into Szymany were officially confirmed in Poland, by the Polish Air Navigation Service Agency. Moreover, it was not until August last year that further incriminating details were added by the the Polish Border Guard Office, who released a number of crucial documents to the Warsaw-based Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, as I explained in an article at the time, New Evidence About Prisoners Held in Secret CIA Prisons in Poland and Romania.
As a result of these revelations, the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza reported that former Prime Minister Leszek Miller and former President Aleksander Kwasniewski "may face war crime charges for agreeing to host the facility," and I reported details of the ongoing investigation in my article, Will Poland's Former Leaders Face War Crimes Charges for Hosting Secret CIA Prison?
Since then, the story has refused to go away, despite being largely ignored in the US mainstream media, with further damning reports about the torture program -- and the moving of "high-value detainees" between Poland, Romania, Lithuania and Morocco -- published by the Associated Press in August and September (Terrorist interrogation tapes found, Former FBI Man Implicated in CIA Abuse, and Poles Urged to Probe CIA Prison Acts), and the announcement about the "victim" status of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri on October 27.
The timing of the Polish Prosecutor's announcement about Abu Zubaydah's "victim" status is also useful in terms of a week-long Polish tour of the film "Outside the Law: Stories from Guantà ¡namo" (co-directed by Polly Nash and myself), which former Guantà ¡namo prisoner Moazzam Begg and I are undertaking in the first week of February (details to be announced soon). Moazzam and I are primarily undertaking this tour, with the support of organizations including Amnesty International and Le Monde Diplomatique, to raise awareness of the real stories of the men held at Guantà ¡namo (most of whom had nothing to do with terrorism), and also to raise awareness of the need for new homes to be found for men who cannot be repatriated safely, but we are also keenly aware that the Polish government's complicity in the establishment of a secret US torture prison on Polish soil needs to be discussed, and we are anticipating that experts involved in the cases of al-Nashiri and Zubaydah will be joining us for the tour.
Below is the press release issued today by Reprieve and INTERIGHTS:
Polish Prosecutor officially recognises Guantà ¡namo prisoner Abu Zubaydah as a victim in Poland's CIA secret prison investigation; decision will allow former "high-value detainee' to testify against his US torturers and their allies.
WARSAW--Guantà ¡namo prisoner Abu Zubaydah has been granted all-important "victim' status in the pending criminal investigation into a CIA black site in Poland, following a complaint brought by Polish lawyer Bartlomiej Jankowski working with INTERIGHTS, Reprieve and Joe Margulies.
The Polish Prosecutor is the first state official to accept Abu Zubaydah's claims that he was a victim of extraordinary rendition and secret detention in Poland. Until now both the Polish and US governments have repeatedly denied that he was illegally imprisoned and tortured in a secret prison near Szymany; the Prosecutor's office has now accepted that Abu Zubaydah's claims are not only credible but also extremely serious.
Poland's decision is a crucial step towards uncovering the truth about the CIA's rendition and torture programme in Europe. Victim status allows Abu Zubaydah's lawyers to participate fully in the criminal investigation, which includes introducing further evidence, calling witnesses and taking part in the questioning of witnesses and suspects.
The Polish Prosecutor's leadership stands in contrast with the Lithuanian Prosecutor General's bizarre decision, announced this week, to close his investigation into the CIA black site in Lithuania in which Abu Zubaydah was also held and tortured. Like many other European states, Lithuania was instrumental in the operation of the CIA's illegal rendition and torture programme, and has urgent legal obligations to provide robust and transparent investigations in order to uncover the facts.
Today's decision follows weeks of urgent litigation by Abu Zubaydah's international legal team. On 16 December 2010, Bartlomiej Jankowski filed applications with the Polish Prosecutor's office showing his client was transferred from Thailand to Poland by the CIA on 5 December 2002, and held there for nine or ten months. The applications included extensive evidence of the roles played by CIA agents and Polish officials in the CIA programme in Poland, the rendition flights that transported Abu Zubaydah into and out of Poland, the private companies involved in those flights, and the operation of the CIA's secret prison site at Stare Kiejkuty, near Szymany.
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