The next meeting of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe will consider whether Lithuania and Poland have implemented the judgments handed down by the ECtHR in the cases Abu Zubaydah v Poland (2014) and Abu Zubaydah v Lithuania (2018). In our latest submissions, we underscore two glaring omissions in those states responses, namely: a) their refusal to offer relocation or to assist in facilitating his release from ongoing arbitrary detention, torture and flagrant denial of justice in Guantanamo Bay, despite repeated requests to do so, and b) the absence of any acknowledgement and/or apology for their role in the violations.
Poland and Lithuania, like the other states that have been found by the European Court and/or UN bodies to share responsibility in this notorious case, are urged to finally step up and take the measures they can to bring the ongoing violations of our client rights to an end. They must acknowledge their responsibility and commit to ensuring it does not happen again.
Until they do, there cannot be said to have been meaningful implementation of the Court’s important judgements, or the reparation due to Mr. Abu Zubaydah under international law.
Our latest submissions are here.