Waterboarded Gitmo Detainee Lawyers Up

WASHINGTON, March 20, 2008 — -- Six years after he was captured by U.S. forces in Pakistan, Abu Zubaydah, an accused al Qaeda operative and one of three men the government has admitted exposing to the extreme interrogation technique called waterboarding, is finally being represented by lawyers of his choice.

On Wednesday, the CIA cleared for release a brief filed on his behalf in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

The brief is based almost entirely on 35 press reports, relying heavily on reporting done by ABC News' Investigative Unit featuring an interview with John Kiriakou, formerly of the CIA.

George Brent Mickum IV and Joseph Margulies, Zubaydah's lawyers, were retained last month.

"We are the only lawyers he has ever seen and he has retained us to work on his behalf," Mickum said.

Zubaydah is appealing his designation as an "enemy combatant" and asking that his case be heard in federal court. The brief was filed on Feb. 21, 2008, and was released Wednesday.

In briefs, the lawyers write that in March 2002, their client was living in Pakistan and that he was "known in his community and widely believed to be mentally challenged."

They say he is not "and never has been an enemy alien, lawful or unlawful belligerent, or combatant of any kind."

President Bush has publicly accused Zubaydah of being a "senior terrorist leader." 

"Our intelligence community believes he had run a terrorist camp in Afghanistan where some of the 9/11 hijackers trained, and that he helped smuggle al Qaeda leaders out of Afghanistan after coalition forces arrived to liberate that country," Bush said in 2006.

"Zubaydah told us that al Qaeda operatives were planning to launch an attack in the United States, and provided physical descriptions of the operatives and information on their general location," Bush said in the same speech. "Based on the information he provided, the operatives were detained -- one while traveling to the United States."

Currently being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Zubaydah has been on a long odyssey since his capture in 2002.