Abu Zubaydah, a Pakistani citizen, was captured by the CIA in 2002 and renditioned to several CIA dark sites in Poland, Lithuania and elsewhere, until he was transferred to Guantánamo in 2006, where he has been held ever since without charges. The now 52-year old has created a series of 40 drawings showing the torture he endured during his detention. "Abu Zubaydah is the first person to be tortured, having been approved by the [US] Department of Justice based on facts that the CIA knew to be false,” says Prof Mark Denbeaux, one of his lawyers. Last week, the UN called for him to be set free immediately, finding that his ongoing detention may be a crime against humanity.

Warning: the images and descriptions of torture in this article are extremely graphic.

  • Ron DeSantis Explodes When Asked About His Role in Guantánamo Torture

    Two former detainees have called out DeSantis specifically for his role in the unbearable situation at Guantánamo. One, Abu Sarrah Ahmed Abdel Aziz, told The Washington Post he is “100 percent” certain he spoke to DeSantis multiple times. Abdel Aziz spoke fluent English and was trying to report mistreatment claims to JAG officers.

    Another former inmate, Mansoor Adayfi, said he saw a photo of DeSantis on Twitter in 2021 and recognized the governor immediately. “It was a face I could never forget. I had seen that face for the first time in Guantanamo, in 2006—one of the camp’s darkest years when the authorities started violently breaking hunger strikes and three of my brothers were found dead in their cages,” Adayfi wrote in an essay for Al Jazeera.

    Adayfi said he shared a photo of DeSantis with several other former inmates, and they all recognized him from Guantánamo. Adayfi vividly remembers DeSantis watching from behind a fence as he was force-fed, “smiling and laughing with other officers as I screamed in pain.”

    • it’s incredible this guy has managed to memory-hole his complicity in this stuff, although i assume if he gains a larger national profile (as he apparently insists on doing by running the worst presidential campaign ever) it may come crashing back into the forefront.