STRASBOURG, France (AFP) — The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday condemned Lithuania over the torture of a Saudi man in a secret CIA prison, the second case to target the Baltic nation.
Judges found that Lithuania had violated several provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights, which it upholds, especially articles 2 (right to life) and 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment), the court said.
Lithuania must also pay Mustafa al-Hawsawi 100,000 euros ($109,000) in damages for treatment including "blindfolding or hooding, solitary confinement, the continuous use of leg shackles, and exposure to noise and light."
Such techniques were "standard CIA practice under the secret detainee program at the time" although not "the harshest" applied in Lithuania, the court added.
Al-Hawsawi, born in 1968, was captured in Pakistan in 2003 and suspected by U.S. authorities of involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
He is now held at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo, Cuba, where he still faces a death penalty case.
The court said he had claimed he was taken to a secret CIA detention center in Lithuania in 2005.
The clandestine U.S. prisons were set up in several countries — including Poland, Lithuania, Romania, Afghanistan and Thailand — at the beginning of the "War on Terror" launched by the U.S. government in response to the Sept. 11 attacks.
The court based its ruling on a 2014 report published by the U.S. Senate on "CIA torture."
"That report had specifically named Mr. al-Hawsawi as having been detained at the CIA secret detainee site codenamed 'Detention Site Violet,'" located in Lithuania "in light of evidence gathered by the court," it said.
"Lithuanian authorities had to have been aware that the CIA would subject him to such treatment ... given the information widely available at the time," it added.
Vilnius also allowed al-Hawsawi's transfer to a secret prison in Afghanistan and on to the U.S., "where he faced the risk of a flagrant denial of justice and the death penalty," the judges found.
Lithuania was found guilty by the court in a similar case in 2018, but still denies a black site existed on its territory.
Vilnius should "undertake a full criminal investigation as quickly as possible," the court said.
"Lithuania's institutions will take the necessary measures to correctly apply the decision, including the financial compensation," justice ministry spokesman Paulius Zeimys told AFP.
A probe launched by Lithuanian prosecutors in 2014 is still under way, a spokesperson for the attorney general's office, Elena Martinoniene, said.
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by Agence France-Presse
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