Abu Zubaydah, waterboarded 83 times by CIA then hidden from view for 14 years, pleads for freedom
Alleged al-Qaeda operative was subjected to sleep deprivation, kept nude, confined in coffin-like boxes, and forced to crouch in a cage during his detention
Abu Zubaydah, a terror detainee who was the first to undergo torture by waterboarding in secret CIA custody after 9/11, appeared before a Pentagon panel on Tuesday to plead for his release — the first time he’s been seen by any member of the public since being captured in 2002 during a shootout in Pakistan.
The video link that beamed his image from Guantanamo to the Pentagon hearing, which was witnessed in part by more than a dozen journalists and monitors from nonprofit groups, revealed no signs of the torture or other abuse Abu Zubaydah suffered during the four years he was in CIA custody. He wore a white formal tunic, and his beard and moustache were neatly trimmed. His dark hair was closely cropped. An eye patch hung from a cord around his neck. How he lost his left eye is not publicly known.
The US government says Abu Zubaydah, who was born in Saudi Arabia in 1971, was a senior al-Qaeda communications operative who “was generally aware of the impending 9/11 attacks” and may have coordinated the training of two hijackers at a militant camp in Afghanistan. It says he also plotted attacks against Israeli, Jordanian and Western targets, though the government’s unclassified profile also acknowledges that he has been a cooperative prisoner at Guantanamo.
Abu Zubaydah, through an unnamed personal representative, said he’s no threat to American security and ought to be released.
