Lithuania Appeals European Court Ruling Over CIA's Secret Prison Case

VILNIUS (Sputnik) – The complaint to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) with the case of terror suspect Abu Zubaydah comes two weeks after Lithuania's representative at the ECHR said that the Baltic country would not appeal the court's ruling since it was unlikely to be changed.

The Lithuanian government has submitted a complaint to the ECHR over its May decision regarding the case of terror suspect Abu Zubaydah, who claimed that the Baltic country hosted a secret CIA prison where he was violently tortured, the Lithuanian Justice Ministry told Sputnik on Monday.

READ MORE: Lithuania Not to Appeal European Court Ruling Over US CIA Prisons — Official

"The ECHR complaint was filed on Friday night," the Lithuanian Justice Ministry said.

The May 2018 rulings in the Zubaydah case and that of another terror suspect, Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, came in the wake of reports that the violent interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, were used by the CIA in its secretive "black site" in Thailand when it was run by Gina Haspel, who is currently the director of the agency.

In May, the ECHR concluded that Lithuania and Romania were responsible for violating the rights of terrorism suspects due to their complicity in the CIA’s "secret rendition" program. Lithuania was ordered to pay 100,000 euros (about $116,000) in damages to Zubaydah, a member of al-Qaeda terrorist group (banned in Russia), for allowing the CIA to subject him to ill-treatment during interrogation on the country's territory.