by Tony Iozzo
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe
STRASBOURG, France – Two terror suspects currently held at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba brought a case to the European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday, alleging that Poland was contributing to human rights abuses against them by the United States.
Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri claim that they were tortured at a secret prison in Poland affiliated with the CIA from 2002 to 2003. The two suspects allege that they were subjected to torture and isolated detention while in Poland. They claim that they were interrogated with waterboarding, and had mock executions performed on them while being told their family was going to be sexually abused.
Zubaydah, a 42-year-old Palestinian, was accused of coordinating travel arrangements for jihadis loyal to Osama Bin Laden, including those who carried out the September 2001 attacks in the U.S. al-Nashiri, 48, a Saudi, was accused of organizing the 2000 attack on the USS Cole warship in Yemen, in which 17 sailors died.
The U.S.’s war on terror allegedly included CIA operated detention centers in several European countries, according to reports by a Council of Europe investigator. The detention center at issue in Poland is known as Stare Kiejkuty, an intelligence training base near Szczytno in northern Poland.
The suspects were allegedly flown to Poland on the same rendition plane in December 2002. Former U.S. President George W. Bush authorized the rendition policy shortly after the 9/11 attacks to allow the CIA to interrogate terror suspects secretly outside the US.
Zubaydah and al-Nashiri’s lawyers are representing them in Strasbourg and a court statement said their submissions are based mainly on publicly available sources, because of the restrictions imposed on them at Guantanamo Bay.
An investigator at the human rights group Reprieve, stated, “European support for the CIA’s torture program is one of the darkest chapters of our recent history – it is encouraging that the court now looks set to bring it to light, where the [Polish] government has sought to sweep it under the carpet. We have now heard overwhelming and uncontested evidence that the CIA was running a secret torture prison on Polish soil, with the Polish government’s knowledge.”
“The Polish government has failed to contest that it knew prisoners were being held beyond the rule of law and tortured by the CIA inside their own country. It has also become clear that the Polish government’s investigation into the issue was in reality nothing more than a smoke-screen, which was neither designed nor intended to get to the truth,” the investigator stated.
No judgment was issued on Tuesday, however one will be issued at an undisclosed future date.
For more information, please see:
BBC News – Two Terror Suspects Sue Poland Over “CIA Torture” – 3 December 2013
The Guardian – Guantanamo Bay Detainees Claim Poland Allowed CIA Torture – 3 December 2013
Polskie Radio – Human Rights Court Examines CIA Prison in Poland Allegations – 3 December 2013
The Voice of Russia – Terror Suspects Sue Poland For Conniving in CIA Torture – 3 December 2013
