a former U.S. official spoke of an imprisoned Palestinian
LNK News reports that the American company Netflix has made a documentary about the American fight against terrorism. It also talks about Lithuania.
Dale Watson, a former assistant director of the FBI’s Counter-Terrorism Division, wants two agents to “go to that country.” As for “that country”, images of a building near Vilnius are shown, saying that Americans here consider Abu Zubaydah one of the most important terrorists here.
“I was in charge of the fight against terrorism, FBI Director R. Mueller called me after the meeting in the White House and said: you need to send agents to that country, I said: well, we will do what happened. I was told they had Abu Zubaydah, ”Watson said.
In December 2014, the U.S. Senate issued reports of secret Central Intelligence Board (CIA) detention centers. It also mentions the “purple” search center, which operated in 2005-2006. Human rights defenders believe that this center operated in Antaviliai, Lithuania, near Vilnius.
LNK Žinios notes that at that time D. Watson had already officially left the FBI. Public sources indicate that he left the service in 2002.
“Those testimonies would not be of interest to our Prosecutor General’s Office, which was investigated at the time,” said Arvydas Anušauskas, a member of the Seimas and now Minister of National Defense, for a parliamentary inquiry into the CIA prison leadership.
In 2014, the Lithuanian Prosecutor General’s Office launched a pre-trial investigation into the possible smuggling of people across the state border, reclassifying it in 2018 as a sign of illicit treatment of people in accordance with the instructions of the European Court of Human Rights. Prosecutors have not completed the investigation, no allegations have been made against anyone.
Mr Zubaydah is suspected of contributing to the 9/11 attacks and is currently being held at Guantánamo in Cuba.
A Palestinian born in Saudi Arabia, more than three years ago, the European Court of Human Rights won a case against Lithuania. The court ruled that he was illegally held in a secret prison in Lithuania and ordered him to pay 130 thousand. euros.
The Ministry of Justice informed LNK Žinios that this month Abu Zubaydah was advised by a prisoner’s approved power of attorney to transfer the money. Only Lithuania is not sure whether this power of attorney is professional apostilized, that is, whether it is real seals.
“The applicant’s lawyer submitted a power of attorney only this month, but he has not yet been apostilized, as required, and wants to get the document drawn up in a foreign state to be genuine,” the ministry said in a comment.
According to her, after legal proceedings, compensation will be paid immediately.
Lithuania still does not recognize that the CIA prison operated in the country – in 2016, the then Deputy Minister of Justice Paulius Griciūnas said in the Strasbourg court that the building in Antaviliai was an intelligence support center, but not a prison or detention center.
The parliamentary scrutiny proposed by the Seimas National Security and Defense Committee in 2009 has still not been announced when the CIA detainees were brought to Lithuania, although they acknowledged that the conditions were there.