Guantánamo prisoner can sue UK government, supreme court rules

Abu Zubaydah said US agents unlawfully rendered him to six countries and ultimately took him to Guantánamo Bay, where he has been held without trial ever since. Photograph: Thomas Watkins/AFP/Getty Images

A Guantánamo Bay prisoner can sue the UK government in England and Wales over allegations that British intelligence services asked the CIA to put questions to him while he was being tortured in “black sites”, the UK’s highest court has ruled.

The supreme court said MI5 and MI6 were subject to the law of England and Wales and not – as the government had attempted to argue – the six different countries where Abu Zubaydah was held.