Terror
suspects subjected to extraordinary rendition tell European court of human
rights they were waterboarded
theguardian.com,
Owen Bowcott and Ian Cobain, Tuesday 3 December 2013
 |
| Judges of the European court of human rights during a hearing at the court in Strasbourg on Tuesday. Photograph: Vincent Kessler/Reuters |
Lawyers for
two men subject to extraordinary rendition by the CIA told the European court
of human rights (ECHR) on Tuesday that Poland, which permitted a secret
"black" site to operate on its territory, should also be held
responsible for their torture.
Abd
al-Rahim Hussayn Muhammad al-Nashiri, a Saudi Arabian national of Yemeni
descent and Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, also known as Abu Zubaydah, a
stateless Palestinian, maintain they were waterboarded during interrogation in
Poland. Both men are being held by the US in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
The
Strasbourg court also heard a submission from Ben Emmerson QC, the UN special
rapporteur on counter-terrorism, who argued that where gross or
"systematic human rights violations are alleged to have occurred, the
right to know the truth is not only an individual right that belongs to the
immediate victim of the violation, but also a collective right that belongs to
the whole of society".
Nashiri,
who was born in 1965, is the prime suspect of the terrorist attack on the US
navy ship USS Cole in the harbour of Aden, Yemen, in October 2000. He is also
suspected of playing a role in the attack on the French oil tanker MV Limburg
in the Gulf of Aden in October 2002. Husayn, born in 1971, was considered by
the US authorities to be an important member of al-Qaida and is alleged to have
been involved in planning the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
They claim
that after being captured by the CIA they were transferred on the same
"rendition" plane in December 2002 to a secret detention site in
Poland, with the knowledge of the Polish authorities, for the purpose of
interrogation and were tortured.
Nashiri
maintains he was seized in Dubai in October that year and subsequently moved
around secret CIA detention facilities in Afghanistan and Thailand before being
taken to Poland. He remained in a secret detention centre until early June
2003, when he was secretly transferred, with the assistance of the Polish
authorities, to Morocco and then, in September 2003, to the US naval base in
Guantánamo Bay.
He says he
was subjected to the so-called "waterboard technique", where a
detainee is tied to a bench with his feet elevated above his head, a cloth
placed over his mouth and nose and water poured on to the cloth producing the
sensation of drowning and suffocation.
Nashiri
alleges he was also forced into prolonged stress positions – kneeling on the
floor and leaning back – and was threatened that his family would be abused if
he did not provide information.
Husayn says
that, having been captured in Pakistan in March 2002 and subsequently
transferred to a secret CIA detention facility in Thailand, he was brought to
Poland in early December 2002 where he was held in a secret CIA detention
facility until September 2003.
According
to his submissions, Husayn was subjected to waterboarding and was placed in a
box and exposed to extreme noise. Following his transfer to Guantánamo Bay, he
has not been charged with any criminal offence.
A criminal
investigation in Poland against persons unknown concerning secret CIA prisons
on Polish territory was opened in March 2008. The authorities have not
disclosed the exact terms of reference or the precise scope of the
investigation.
According
to Husayn's lawyers, communication with him is extremely restricted, making it
impossible to pass on information or evidence directly from him to the ECHR.
The presentation of his case is principally based on publicly available
sources.
Pádraig
Hughes, a lawyer with Interights who presented the cases, said before the
hearing: "Despite the best efforts of Poland to hide its involvement in
the US led extraordinary rendition programme, there is clear evidence of its
complicity.
"The
ECHR now has an opportunity to examine that evidence properly and to ensure
that Poland is held accountable for its involvement in Abu Zubaydah's torture
and ill treatment. We hope that the court's ruling will make it clear that the
actions by the Polish authorities were a clear violation of human rights and
should never be repeated by any country that properly respects human rights and
the rule of law."
The case continues.
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