UN experts urge Biden to pardon Guantanamo prisoner

GENEVA: United Nations experts called on Wednesday on outgoing US President Joe Biden to issue a pardon for Abu Zbubaydah, who has been held at Guantanamo for nearly 20 years without charge.

“We are exceptionally requesting a Presidential pardon for Mr Abu Zubaydah, owing to his treatment while in detention and the lack of due process since he was first detained,” a dozen independent UN experts said in a statement.

“His immediate release and relocation to a third safe country are long overdue.”

Abu Zubaydah was the first of a number of prisoners to be subjected to CIA “enhanced interrogation” techniques following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

The Saudi-born Palestinian, whose full name is Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, was captured in Pakistan in 2002 and has been held without trial at the US Guantanamo camp in Cuba since 2006.

He was waterboarded 83 times and suffered other physical abuse, according to a US Senate report, which said that the CIA conceded he was never a member of Al-Qaeda and not involved in planning the 9/11 attacks.

The UN experts, including the special rapporteurs on torture and on promoting human rights while countering terrorism, warned in Wednesday´s statement that Zubaydah “suffers serious health conditions”.

Those included “injuries sustained during torture that are allegedly exacerbated by the denial of medical attention”, they said.