The United Kingdom has agreed to pay a “substantial” out-of-court settlement to Palestinian Guantanamo prisoner Abu Zubaydah, attorney Helen Duffy announced on Monday.
Zubaydah was accused of being a high-ranking Al-Qaeda official and alleged to have run training camps in Afghanistan for terrorists. The claim has not been substantiated and Zubaydah was never found guilty by any court of law and the CIA is said to have now acknowledged he was not a member of the Islamist group.
Describing Zubaydah as a “forever prisoner,” Duffy said that 54-year-old Zubaydah was subjected to torture by the CIA with the complicity of the United Kingdom and several other nations.
A UK parliamentary report in 2018 acknowledged the UK’s role in feeding the CIA questions despite knowing that the CIA was carrying out acts of torture.
“This compensation is important, but far from sufficient while he languishes in unlawful detention and ongoing torture in Guantanamo. It will soon be a chilling 24 years of detention without any charge, trial, or review of lawfulness by a court of law,” Duffy wrote. “The next step must be for the UK and others to publicly acknowledge their role, and to offer to facilitate his immediate release.”
Human Rights in Practice wrote in a statement on Sunday that Zubaydah was held from 2002 to 2006 in “black site” prisons across the globe and subjected to unlawful and brutal torture. He was held in Thailand, Poland, Morocco, Lithuania, and Afghanistan.
“This case is deeply relevant today, as some states ride roughshod over international law, and the world looks to others to respond,” Duffy said. “There are critical lessons about the cost of cooperating with the US or other allies flouting international norms. It is more important than ever that human rights and states’ international obligations are respected, and violations are met with reparation and accountability.”
US Senate report: Zubaydah waterboarded 83 times, left isolated up to 47 days at a time
The first person to enter the CIA’s detention and interrogation program, Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times and left isolated for up to 47 days at a time, according to a US Senate report, which said the CIA admitted he was neither a member of the al-Qaeda terror group nor played a role in the September 11 attacks.
Duffy said that in one instance of torture, Zubaydah was left in a coffin-sized box for 11 days, where he was abandoned to “marinate in his own urine and feces.”
In 2025, Duffy told the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, “If you’ve detained and tortured someone for over 23 years, without reasons or evidence, you cannot prosecute them now. Abu Zubaydah’s lawyers asked for many years for him to be prosecuted, and to provide any evidence, but none was forthcoming. There is no prospect of a trial, nor could there be anything like a fair trial at this stage, and this has been confirmed through international litigation.
“So I feel like the duty to prosecute isn’t a key issue. If there had been any evidence against our client, and if it had provided the basis for charges 20 years ago, that could have been a rule of law response. But it wasn’t.”
Dominic Grieve, who chaired a parliamentary inquiry into Zubaydah's case, told BBC News that the financial settlement was a "very unusual" situation but admitted his treatment was “plainly” wrong.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, condemning the settlement, wrote on X, "We knew Labour's Attorney General Richard Hermer defended IRA terrorist Gerry Adams and ISIS bride Shamima Begum, now we see he helped win a 'substantial' sum of UK taxpayers' cash for a terror suspect.
"How can a man who aides Britain's enemies be a part of Britain's government?"
Shadow chancellor Robert Jenrick wrote on X, "Abu Zubaydah is held in Guantanamo, accused of training terrorists and working for Bin Laden."
He continued, "The Attorney General was his lawyer. And now Starmer is using taxpayers' money to give him a massive payout... What's going on?"
Writing an open letter to Justice Secretary David Lammy, Jenrick wrote, "How can it possibly be a priority to give him taxpayers' money?"