Abu Zubaydah (Arabic: ابو زبيدة, Abū Zubaydah; born March 12, 1971 as Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn) is a Saudi Arabian citizen currently held in U.S. custody in Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba.
April 2001, months prior to 9/11, Abu Zubaydah called his brother Hesham (who was living in Oregon) 3 times. At this time the NSA and other agencies had stated that Abu Zubaydah was under the radar and radio silent. Arrested in Pakistan in March 2002, Abu Zubaydah has been in US custody for more than nine years, four-and-a-half of them as a ghost detainee in the CIA secret prison network. The CIA transferred him between prisons in various countries as part of their extraordinary rendition program. During interrogation in that time he was water-boarded 83 times and has been subjected to numerous other controversial interrogation techniques including forced nudity, sleep deprivation, confinement in small dark boxes, deprivation of solid food, stress positions, and physical assaults. Videotapes of some of his interrogations are amongst those destroyed by the CIA in 2005.
He was transferred to Guantanamo in September 2006 where he and other former CIA detainees are held in Camp 7 where conditions are the most isolating. He has never been charged, despite being accused for years by US authorities.
Read more about Abu Zubaydah: Biography and His Early Years in Afghanistan, Early Activities, Capture, Interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, The Interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, The Changing Depiction of Abu Zubaydah, Saudi and Pakistani Connection Allegations