Supreme Court to hear Guantanamo detainee’s case

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a case from a Guantanamo detainee seeking information after he was held in a CIA “black site” following the Sept. 11 attacks.

Abu Zubaydah is seeking to subpoena two CIA contractors who helped develop interrogation tactics used during the George W. Bush administration that international courts later deemed to be torture.

Zubaydah was captured in Pakistan in 2002 as a member of al Qaeda and has been in U.S. custody ever since, spending time in numerous facilities, where he says he was subjected to sleep deprivation and was waterboarded 83 times.

The government has acknowledged his time in custody “included the use of enhanced interrogation techniques.” 

A federal district court previously sided with the government, who argued that that subpoenas risk revealing state secrets. But the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the information segregated so that the rest could potentially be released.

The Trump administration appealed that decision in December. 

Prior to being held at Guantanamo, Zubaydah was held at various CIA sites in Europe. In 2015 the European Court on Human Rights found it was inconceivable he was not tortured there while another 2018 decision found he was at “serious risk of torture and ill-treatment.”