The shadow of the "War on Terror" has returned to haunt Whitehall. In a revelation that has stunned Westminster, it has emerged that the UK government quietly authorized a substantial compensation payment to Abu Zubaydah, a Guantánamo Bay detainee known as the "forever prisoner." The payout, estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands of pounds, is a tacit admission of British complicity in his torture by the CIA.

Zubaydah, a Palestinian national captured in Pakistan in 2002, was the first person to be subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques"—a euphemism for waterboarding and confinement in coffin-sized boxes. While he was never charged with a crime, intelligence reports confirmed that MI5 and MI6 officers fed questions to his interrogators, knowing fully well the brutal conditions under which he was being held.

"Paying for Silence"

Former Attorney General Dominic Grieve has led the calls for transparency, demanding that ministers explain why taxpayers are underwriting the moral failures of the intelligence services. "We cannot buy our way out of accountability," Grieve stated. "If we paid, it means we knew. And if we knew, we are liable." The payment is widely seen as a settlement to prevent a protracted court battle that could have exposed sensitive intelligence-sharing protocols with Washington.

• The Legal Precedent: This is not the first time the UK has settled with former detainees. In 2010, the government paid millions to Binyam Mohamed and others. However, the Zubaydah case is unique because he remains incarcerated in Cuba, meaning British funds are effectively being transferred to a US military prison.
• The Intelligence Defense: Security sources argue that the payment was a pragmatic decision to protect "national security interests." They maintain that while the UK does not condone torture, the realities of the post-9/11 landscape necessitated cooperation with American agencies that were operating under different rules.

A Moral stain

Rights groups like Reprieve have termed the payout "hush money." "The government hopes that by writing a cheque, the public will forget that British spies were complicit in waterboarding," said a spokesperson. As the UK attempts to position itself as a global champion of human rights, the Zubaydah settlement serves as a jarring reminder of the dark compromises made in the name of security.