Supreme Court justices appeared to agree on Wednesday that it’s time for the longest-held U.S. detainee at Guantánamo Bay to tell his story in court. The prisoner, Zain al-Abidine Muhammad Hussein, better known as Abu Zubaydah, was waterboarded more than 60 times after being captured in a Pakistani military raid in March 2002. U.S. intelligence and FBI agents wrongly believed he was a top-level al-Qaida operative and subjected him to months of merciless torture.
Nineteen years later, Abu Zubaydah’s case has finally reached the Supreme Court, a testament to the ongoing reluctance of the U.S. justice system to engage on the touchy subject of the rights of suspects linked, rightly or wrongly, to the 9/11 attacks. What should be an open-and-shut case of egregious human rights violations shockingly remains a subject of sterile courtroom debate, years after the focal point of Wednesday’s discussion — Abu Zubaydah — was rendered a broken and irreparably maimed man because of his barbaric treatment.
In addition to being waterboarded, the Palestinian was stuffed inside a coffinlike box for 11 days. His captors infested the box with insects to torment him. Already gravely injured from gunshot wounds during his capture, Abu Zubaydah also lost an eye during his CIA captivity. Whether his torture actually yielded useful intelligence is still under debate, which is surprising considering that investigators concluded long ago he was not even a member al-Qaida.
