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 The treatment of Zubaydah, who lost one eye and was waterboarded
83 times in a single month while held by the CIA, according to
government documents, has been the focus of speculation for years.
"We submitted 116 pages in 10 separate submissions," Joe Margulies,
Zubaydah’s lead defense lawyer, told Reuters. "The government
declared all of it classified."
Margulies and lawyers for other detainees said that the decision
showed that the Obama administration plans to continue declaring
detainees’ accounts of their own torture classified. A Central
Intelligence Agency spokesperson declined to comment.
After the release of a U.S. Senate report on CIA torture in
December, the government loosened its classification rules and
released 27 pages of interview notes compiled by lawyers for
detainee Majid Khan in which he described his torture.
 Khan, a Guantanamo detainee turned government cooperating witness,
said interrogators poured ice water on his genitals, twice
videotaped him naked and repeatedly touched his "private parts" -
none of which was described in the Senate report.
Khan said that guards, some of whom smelled of alcohol, also
threatened to beat him with a hammer, baseball bats, sticks and
leather belts.
"The CIA has apparently changed its mind about allowing detainees to
talk about their torture," said Wells Dixon, Khan’s lawyer.
CIA and White House officials opposed releasing the Senate report,
but Senator Dianne Feinstein, who then chaired the Intelligence
Committee, made public its 480-page executive summary.
A month after the report's release, government lawyers said in a
January 2015 court filing that the CIA had issued new classification
rules that permitted the release of “general allegations of
torture,” and “information regarding the conditions of confinement.”
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But they said the names of CIA employees or contractors could not be
released. Nor the locations of the secret "black" sites where
detainees were held around the world after the Sept. 11, 2001
attacks.
Margulies said the 116 pages of notes he submitted for clearance
were limited to Zubayda's description of his torture and did not
include prohibited information.
Margulies said he followed "the rule to the letter" and accused the
CIA of trying "guarantee that Abu Zubaydah never discloses what was
done to him."
Zubaydah, a 44-year-old Saudi national, has been held in Guantanamo
for nine years and not been charged with a crime.
(Reporting by David Rohde; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
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