The alleged Al Qaeda operative (it turns out that he wasn't even a member) lost his left eye while in CIA custody, sometime between 2002 and 2006. As of today he has suffered the Guantanamo torture camp for eight years nine months.
His attorney Brent Mickum says "there is absolutely no question that on the night he was captured he had two completely functional eyes.'' A CIA spokesman claims a pre-existing condition caused the eye to "disintegrate" on its own. But eighty-three waterboardings (Zubaydah was the first suspect officially subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques") didn't help.
John Yoo's 2003 memo determined that to put out or destroy an eye could be legal as long as no specific intent to cause the prisoner severe pain could be proved. "It is an unconscionable document" says law professor Dawn Johnsen.
CIA videotapes of Zubaydah's interrogation were destroyed. But the physician from Johns Hopkins University who treated Abu Zubaydah could shed some light on what happened.
