WASHINGTON — The first high-profile Al Qaeda terror suspect captured after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, appeared Tuesday at a US government hearing called to determine whether he should remain in detention at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Abu Zubaydah, a Palestinian not seen publicly since his capture by the CIA in 2002, sat expressionless during the brief hearing. Zubaydah was also the first to vanish into the CIA’s secret ‘‘black site’’ prison network and was subjected to ‘‘enhanced interrogation.’’
The review panel issued no immediate ruling on his status. He has been held at Guantanamo Bay since September 2006.
The United States contended that Zubaydah, 45, was one of the most senior figures in Al Qaeda when he was captured in Pakistan. It has since dropped that claim. Zubaydah’s lawyers deny he was a member of Al Qaeda.
After his capture, the CIA under President George W. Bush initiated a secret interrogation program, now widely viewed as torture. He became the first prisoner to be subjected to waterboarding, which simulates drowning.
Under the program, Zubaydah was given what the Bush administration called ‘‘enhanced interrogation’’ in the belief that he was withholding information about Al Qaeda. A Senate report released in 2014 said that belief was false.
Zubaydah was subjected to waterboarding 83 times in August 2003.
In a statement prepared for the review and provided to the Associated Press, a lawyer for Zubaydah asserted that he poses no danger to the United States. ‘‘Abu Zubaydah is not now and never has been an enemy of the United States and has been involved in no terroristic acts,’’ Mark P. Denbeaux said.
Denbeaux, a law professor at Seton Hall Law School, maintains the government has grossly exaggerated its claims. He pointed to a 2014 report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that accused the CIA of offering a misleading version of what it was doing with its ‘‘black site’’ captives.
‘‘But it is only this forum,’’ Denbeaux wrote, referring to the Guantanamo review, ‘‘that can correct, at least partially, the injustice done to this man since this panel marks the first time anyone other than torturers and jailers have had an opportunity to see and to hear from Abu Zubaydah.’’
