Lithuania has not appealed the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECtHR) ruling on the unlawful detention of a Saudi national in a suspected secret CIA prison near Vilnius two decades ago.
The ECtHR judgement therefore became final on April 16.
“The Justice Ministry decided not to appeal the ECtHR judgment in the case of al-Hawsawi v. Lithuania and not to ask the Grand Chamber of the ECtHR to reconsider it,” the ministry spokesman Paulius Žeimys has told BNS.
In late January, the ECtHR awarded 100,000 euros to Mustafa al-Hawsawi for his unlawful detention in the alleged secret facility, and another 30,000 euros to REDRESS, the non-governmental organisation that represented the Saudi national.
The Strasbourg court found that al-Hawsawi’s detention in Lithuania had violated various articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, such as the prohibition of torture, the right to a fair trial, the right to life, liberty, and security.
Al-Hawsawi, who is suspected of involvement in the 9/11 attacks, was detained in Pakistan in 2003 and is currently being held at the US Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba.
According to the ECtHR, the man was held in detention in Lithuania between 2005 and 2006.
The ECtHR also held that, in the context of this case, Lithuania was under an obligation to approach the US to remedy or mitigate the human rights violations currently being committed against al-Hawsawi, and to seek assurances from the US authorities that he would not be executed.
The court also told Lithuania “to take the necessary active steps in the country’s pre-trial investigation without delay”.
Lithuanian prosecutors opened their investigation into the suspected CIA prison back in 2010, but closed it a year later. However, the probe was reopened in 2015 following a declassified US Senate report in 2014.
The report did not name any specific countries, but human rights activists believe that the site referred to as “Violet” in the report was located in Lithuania.
This evidence was also used by the ECtHR.
It was the second case before the Strasbourg court over the alleged CIA prison, both of which Lithuania lost. A third case is currently under consideration.
The ECtHR ruled back in 2018 that the CIA had operated a secret detention site in Lithuania between 2005 and 2006 and that Abu Zubaydah, another Saudi national, had been held in the facility.
Lithuania then appealed the judgment, but unsuccessfully. This is one of the reasons why the Justice Ministry opted not to do so in the second case.
Lithuania does not officially acknowledge that the CIA operated a secret detention site for terror suspects on its territory.
The parliamentary Committee on National Security and Defence said after its inquiry in 2009 that it had found no evidence that CIA detainees had been brought to Lithuania, but admitted that conditions for that had been present.
Lithuania says that the facility in Antaviliai, near Vilnius, was to be used as an intelligence support centre rather than a prison and that the suspicious planes transported communications equipment, not people, to the country.
