Bengaluru: Zayn al-Ibidin Muhammed Husayn alias Abu Zubaydah (in pic), the 47-year-old Saudi national of Palestinian descent, who was one of the first men, handed over to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) post the 9/11 terror attacks, was a student of prestigious ‘Sarada Vilas College,’ in Mysuru between 1989 and 1990 and had travelled to Bengaluru and Hyderabad before leaving for Peshawar and Afghanistan.
On Wednesday, the Intelligence Bureau came calling, with IB officials reportedly approaching the college for his records, looking for information on his friends and associates, particularly a woman named Flumina – his then Mysuru-based maid with whom he shared an informal relationship.
The CIA took him into custody on March 28, 2002 from Faisalabad in Pakistan, 12 years after he had left India when he was named as “one of the top operatives plotting and planning death and destruction on the United States,” by the then US President George W. Bush. He was put through CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He has not been charged with war crimes.
College sources told DC that Abu Zubaydah and two others from Jordan had taken admission in ‘Sarada Vilas College’ for an undergraduate course in Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics, English and Arabic in November 1989.
He could however, clear his exams only in Arabic and Computer Science in 1990. He did not complete his graduation and left suddenly. As per college records Abu Zubaydah, as an 18 year old, lived in Udaygiri area in Mysuru for nearly two years.
“Six years ago, a Physics teacher in the college, who had taught Abu Zubaydah and has since retired, had received a ‘yet-to-be-verified’ call about him. We are not sure who had called," a college spokesperson told DC.
On January 24 this year, he was delisted by the United Nations Security Council from its Islamic State and Al Qaeda Sanctions List based on the recommendation of the U.N. ombudsperson, who also concluded that Abu Zubaydah was not a member of al-Qaeda (Case 78), stated a member of Abu’s legal team - Charles R. Church - in his blog ‘Lawfare.’
Abu’s personal diaries, which he has addressed to himself as ‘Hani,’are now, declassified transcripts and are available on the Al Jazeera website. His diary notings, which have been translated into English talk about his 'journey to Mysor' (sic) after growing differences with his Palestinian-origin father. The documents have generated “immense” interest among the Intelligence and Human Rights organizations worldwide besides throwing the Indian Intelligence agencies in a tizzy.
