?Enemy combatant? held at Guant?namo petitions for release because war is over

Abu Zubaydah, the Guantánamo detainee who was tortured close to death by the CIA and who has been held without charge by the US for nearly 20 years, has petitioned a federal court for his release on grounds that America's wars in Afghanistan and with al-Qaida are over.

In a filing with the US district court in Washington DC, Zubaydah's lawyers argue that recent White House declarations that the armed conflict in Afghanistan is over - combined with the complete destruction of the original al-Qaida group that carried out 9/11 - have removed any remaining legal justification for keeping him captive. The motion calls for his immediate release, describing Zubaydah's treatment over the past two decades as a "parade of horribles".

At the heart of the new habeas corpus push for the detainee's freedom is Zubaydah's status as a so-called "enemy combatant". Under the 2001 Authorisation for Use of Military Force (AUMF), passed by Congress days after 9/11, the then president, George W Bush, was given the power to pursue those behind the terrorist attacks as part of the war on terror.

But as the new filing points out, Zubaydah has never been charged with involvement in 9/11 and he was not even a member of al-Qaida, as the US government has conceded. Rather, he was accused of offenses that took place in Afghanistan as part of a war that has now officially been concluded.

A day after the chaotic evacuation of Afghanistan was completed in August, the current president, Joe Biden, said: "My fellow Americans, the war in Afghanistan is now over."

Zubaydah's lawyers insist that the new emphasis on al-Qaida as the justification for keeping him in Guantánamo is also based on legal chicanery. Al-Qaida, they point out, was never specifically mentioned in the AUMF under which Zubaydah is being detained.

They also highlight the fact that all the top al-Qaida leaders involved in 9/11, including Osama bin Laden himself, have either been killed or captured with the sole exception of Bin Laden's successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who some suggest has died of illness.