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 CIA’s rendition and torture program 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 questioning of witnesses and suspects.
The Polish Prosecutor’s leadership stands in contrast with the Lithuanian Prosecutor General’s bizarre decision, announced in January 2011, to close his investigation into the CIA black site in Lithuania, 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 investigation in order to uncover the facts.
On 16 December 2010, Bartlomiej Jankowski, a Polish lawyer, field 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 the 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 companied involved in those flights, and the operation of the CIA’s secret prison site at Stare Kiejkuty, near Szymany.
Zayn al – Abidin Muhammad Husayn, more commonly known as Abu Zubaydah, is a stateless Palestinian born in Saudi Arabia. He was held in secret detention by the CIA of the United States of America from the time of his abduction from a house in Faisalbad, Pakistan on 28 March 2002 until approximately 6 September 2006, when it was announced that he was transferred to the custody of the U.S. Department of Defence (“DOD”) at Gunatanamo. He remains in indefinite detention in DOD custody at Guantanamo Bay. However he has never been charged with any crime, neither in proceedings before a military commission nor in civilian court.
The article is based on the Interights’ press realese published at: http://www.interights.org/view-document/index.htm?id=609
