More than 16 years after the American newspaper The Washington Post revealed to the world the secret network of foreign prisons set up by the CIA, Lithuania has finally allowed the media to look into the former secret home.
This came at a time when the Lithuanian state was compensating Saudi-born Palestinian Abu Zubai, who is suspected of involvement in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States. Zubaida was captured in Pakistan six months after the September 11 terrorist attacks.
It is believed that later, in 2005 and 2006, he was imprisoned in a secret prison near Vilnius.
The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Lithuania must pay compensation for Zubaida’s arbitrary detention.
“We have complied with the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Abu Zubai. Namely, the part where the monetary compensation was ordered. On December 21, we made transfers, 100,000 euros to the account indicated by the plaintiff, 30,000 euros to the lawyer representing them, ”informs Rikards Dzikovičs, a representative of the Lithuanian Ministry of Justice.
Lithuania has so far not acknowledged that there was an institution in the country suitable for such purposes, explaining that the Americans did not transport prisoners to Lithuania, but communication equipment and an intelligence support center was set up in the building in Antaviļi, but these premises were never used for that purpose.
The National Security and Defense Committee of the Lithuanian Seimas conducted an investigation into the possible location of CIA prisons in Lithuania in 2009, but did not find that CIA prisoners had actually been transferred to Lithuania, but acknowledged that the circumstances existed.
