Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri

Lawyers for 46 year-old Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri, the al-Qaeda suspect who claims he was held and tortured in a secret CIA prison in the Stare Kiejkuty intelligence base, have filed a case against Poland at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

The lawyers claim that while being held at the base in north east Poland from December 2002 to June 2003 al-Nashiri was subjected to acts of torture, which included a mock execution with a power drill and that interregators threatened "to bring in his mother and sexually abuse her in front of him."

Al-Nashiri, currently being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, faces the death penalty if found guilty of being behind the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000.

A Pentagon spokeswoman recently indicated that if the Saudi national can prove that he was tortured then charges against him may have to be dropped.

“No evidence obtained by torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment shall be admissible in a military commission,'' said Army Lt. Col. Tanya Bradsher.

The man’s lawyers also say that Poland disregarded the European Convention of Human Rights, which protects prisoners from inhuman treatment while in custody, including being tortured.

Polish prosecutors are currently investigating claims that prisoners were kept and tortured at a CIA ‘black site’, although last October, the US Justice Department refused to assist Poland in its investigation.

Prosecutor Robert Majewski told Polish Radio in March that his team wants access to two plaintiffs who claim they were held and tortured in Poland.

A Red Cross report published in 2009 alleges that Abu Zubaydah and Rahim al-Nashiri were moved from a black site in Thailand to Poland on 5 December 2002, as the CIA was making efforts to close the Thai prison.

Last year Poland’s Border Guards released documents to the Helsinki Foundation which showed the movement of CIA-leased planes into and out of Poland from 2003 to 2005. (pg)

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