Human rights court upholds rendition and torture complaint against Poland

24/07/14

Abd Al Rahim Hussayn Muhammad Al Nashiri was suspected by the US of involvement in attacks including the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000. He has been detained at Guantanamo Bay since 2000. He has never been charged with any offence. The only review of his detention was carried out in 2007. The conclusion was that he should remain in detention.

Mr Al Nashiri claimed that, having been captured in Dubai, he was transferred via CIA facilities in Afghanistan and Thailand to a CIA “black site” in Poland and held there for six months before being subject to “extraordinary rendition" to Guantanamo Bay. During his detention he claims to have been tortured and subject to “enhanced interrogation techniques”, including mock executions, prolonged stress positions and threats to abduct and abuse members of his family.

The complaints to the Strasbourg Court related to his torture, ill-treatment and incommunicado detention in Poland, his rendition to US custody and Poland’s failure to conduct an effective investigation into his allegations.

The Court today held Poland in violation of its obligation under Article 38 of the Convention to furnish all facilities for the effective conduct of an investigation and considered it appropriate to draw negative inferences from this failure. Having held a closed hearing, the Court found Mr Al Nashiri’s allegations convincing. Poland had known the nature and purposes of the CIA activities on its territory at the material time. It had cooperated in the preparation and execution of the CIA rendition, secret detention and interrogation operations by allowing the CIA to use its airspace and airport, by complicity in disguising the movements of the rendition flights, and by providing logistics and services including security for the “black site” at Stare Kiejkuty. Having regard to what was publicly known about the activities and practices of the CIA, Poland should have known that it was exposing Mr Al Nashiri to a serious risk of treatment contrary to the Convention.

The Court found violations of Articles 3 (procedural and substantive), 5, 8 and 13. It also held that, by complicity in Mr Al Nashiri’s transfer to Guantanamo Bay (where he would face trial by a military commission), Poland had breached Mr Al Nashiri’s rights under Article 6 by exposing him to a foreseeable risk of a flagrantly unfair trial; and that by allowing his transfer to the US Poland had exposed him to a foreseeable serious risk of being subject to the death penalty, contrary to Articles 2 and 3, read with Article 1 of Protocol 6.

Poland has three months in which to request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber of the Strasbourg Court.

The judgment is here.

The Court press release is here.