ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Abu Zubaydah

Abu Zubaydah is a person who was captured by the government because they thought he was helping some bad guys. They thought he knew a lot of secrets about the bad guys and could help the government stop them from doing bad things. When they caught Abu Zubaydah, they took him to a secret place where they could ask him questions and try to get him to tell them what he knew. This is called "interrogation." They wanted to know things like where the bad guys were hiding and what they were planning to do so they could stop them.

Abu Zubaydah was kept in this secret place for a long time and was asked a lot of questions. Sometimes, he was treated very badly and hurt, which is not nice. The government was trying to get him to tell them the secrets they wanted and thought that making him uncomfortable would help. This is called "torture" and it is against the law because it can hurt people very badly.

Eventually, the government decided that Abu Zubaydah didn't know as much as they thought he did and they let him go. Today, he is still alive but he probably doesn't trust the government very much after what happened to him. Some people think that the way the government treated Abu Zubaydah was not fair or right, but others think it was necessary to protect the country from bad guys.