Former attorney general urges government to give clarity on British spy agencies’ role in Abu Zubaydah’s torture by CIA
Ministers should explain why the UK has paid compensation to a Palestinian man who was tortured by the CIA and is still being held in Guantánamo Bay, according to a former attorney general.
Abu Zubaydah, the first man subject to CIA waterboarding, was reported by the BBC to have been awarded a payment that may amount to hundreds of thousands of pounds because of the role of MI5 and MI6 in his mistreatment.
The Palestinian was accused of being a senior member of al-Qaida when he was captured in Pakistan in March 2002, but has never faced criminal charges. The US has dropped that accusation and he is not linked to the 9/11 attacks.
MI5 and MI6 passed on questions to the CIA to ask Zubaydah until 2006, even though MI6 was warned he was being subject to harsh mistreatment in 2002, which lawyers argued made the British spy agencies complicit.
