On January 11, 2026, the United Kingdom found itself in the international spotlight after agreeing to pay substantial compensation to Abu Zubaydah, a Palestinian man who has spent nearly two decades imprisoned without trial at Guantanamo Bay. Zubaydah’s case, which has come to symbolize the darkest corners of the post-9/11 “war on terror,” exposes a tangled web of intelligence complicity, legal ambiguity, and ongoing human rights concerns that continue to reverberate far beyond the prison walls of Cuba.
According to the BBC, Abu Zubaydah was the first detainee subjected to the CIA’s notorious “enhanced interrogation” techniques following the September 11, 2001, attacks. Initially trumpeted by U.S. President George W. Bush as a major al-Qaeda operative “plotting and planning murder,” Zubaydah’s capture in Pakistan in 2002 was hailed as a pivotal victory. Yet, in a dramatic reversal, the U.S. government later withdrew its allegations that Zubaydah was a senior al-Qaeda member—casting a long shadow over the justification for his prolonged detention and treatment.
After his capture, Zubaydah was shuttled through a secretive network of CIA “black sites” in six countries, including Lithuania and Poland, for four years. These clandestine facilities operated well outside the reach of U.S. law, allowing for the use of extreme interrogation tactics. The US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence later documented that Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times, locked in coffin-shaped boxes, and physically assaulted. Internal MI6 communications, revealed by the BBC, grimly noted that his treatment would have “broken 98% of U.S. special forces soldiers” if they had been subjected to the same ordeal.
Despite mounting evidence of his mistreatment, British intelligence agencies MI5 and MI6 continued to pass questions to the CIA for use during Zubaydah’s interrogations. It was only after four years that British officials sought any assurances about his welfare—a delay that has drawn sharp criticism from both legal experts and human rights advocates. As Professor Helen Duffy, Zubaydah’s international legal counsel, put it: “The compensation is important, it’s significant, but it’s insufficient.” She emphasized that “these violations of his rights are not historic, they are ongoing,” and called on the UK and other governments “that share responsibility for his ongoing torture and unlawful detention” to ensure his release.
The financial settlement, described as “substantial” but confidential for legal reasons, was reached after Zubaydah brought a legal claim against the UK government, alleging its intelligence services were “complicit” in his torture. Payment was already underway as of January 11, 2026, though Duffy noted that Zubaydah himself is unable to access the funds while still imprisoned. The Foreign Office, which oversees MI6, declined to comment on intelligence matters.
Dominic Grieve, former chair of a parliamentary inquiry into the case, described the settlement as “very unusual,” but acknowledged that what happened to Zubaydah was “plainly” wrong. “We should have raised it with the United States and, if necessary, closed down co-operation, but we failed to do that for a considerable period of time,” Grieve told the BBC. The parliamentary committee’s 2018 report was highly critical of UK intelligence’s conduct, not only in Zubaydah’s case but also in relation to other detainees such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, raising the possibility that similar legal claims could follow.
Zubaydah’s fate is not unique. He is one of just 15 so-called “forever prisoners” still held at Guantanamo Bay, despite multiple judicial rulings and official reports detailing their mistreatment. None have been charged or convicted, underscoring the controversial U.S. policy of indefinite detention for individuals classified as “enemy combatants.” According to Al Jazeera, Zubaydah’s prolonged imprisonment without trial has become a lightning rod for criticism from human rights organizations, who argue that such practices represent a profound violation of both domestic and international legal standards.
The reverberations of Zubaydah’s ordeal have reached British shores in another form as well. On the same day as the compensation news broke, a collective of former hunger strikers from Palestine, Ireland, and Guantanamo Bay issued an urgent appeal to the UK government. Their letter expressed solidarity with current hunger strikers in British prisons—many of whom, like Zubaydah, are being held on remand without trial or conviction, some for over a year. The authors, including ex-Guantanamo detainees and Irish republican hunger strikers, drew stark parallels between their own experiences and those of the current prisoners, arguing that “hunger strikes end only when power intervenes, or when people die.”
The letter, published by Al Jazeera, accused the UK government of choosing “prolonged remand, isolation and censorship” for the Palestine Action prisoners, while deploying “the language of terror in an insidious attempt to deliberately strip these prisoners of public sympathy and basic rights before any trial takes place.” The signatories demanded urgent ministerial meetings with families and legal representatives, immediate bail for all hunger strikers, the dropping of terror charges, fair trial conditions, independent medical care, and an end to censorship and family visit restrictions.
They also condemned the UK’s unwavering support for Israel, including arms sales and diplomatic cover, despite what they described as “systematic abuse” of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails—ranging from torture and sexual violence to medical neglect and deaths in custody. “The proscription of Palestine Action was not about safety. It was about control,” the letter asserted, warning that the use of “terror” labels is a tactic to criminalize dissent and erode the presumption of innocence.
Drawing on historical parallels, the letter invoked the memory of the 1981 Irish hunger strikers in Long Kesh, the force-fed Suffragettes, and the detainees at Guantanamo Bay—each group, it argued, was initially smeared as “terrorists” but later vindicated by history. “Just as they were all vindicated, history will too vindicate the Palestine Action prisoners who sought to stop the slaughter of innocent people, against the wishes and interests of the British government,” the authors wrote.
The Zubaydah case and the hunger strikers’ appeal together highlight a persistent undercurrent in the UK’s approach to national security: the willingness to compromise legal norms and human rights in the name of combating terrorism. As calls for accountability and reform grow louder, the government faces mounting pressure to reconcile its security policies with its professed commitment to justice and the rule of law. For Zubaydah and others still caught in the limbo of indefinite detention, the fight for freedom and recognition of past wrongs is far from over.
As the debate continues, the stories of those like Abu Zubaydah serve as a powerful reminder of the human cost of state violence—and the enduring struggle to ensure that justice is more than just a word on paper.
