WASHINGTON, DC – In a federal jury trial, an American defense contractor, CACI, was held legally responsible for contributing to the abuse of detainees in Abu Ghraib two decades ago, according to a recent article published by The Intercept.
Three Iraqi men held in the infamous prison—a journalist, a middle school principal, and a vendor—were awarded $42 million by the jury, according to the article, which noted the verdict is the first time an American corporation was held legally accountable for contributing to the country’s war on terror.
As stated in the article, CACI, based in Virginia, was hired by the U.S. government for their interrogation services to be used in Abu Ghraib. The plaintiff’s suit accused the contractor of conspiring with American soldiers to torture detainees.
“What the jury did today is send a very clear message that the contractors who go to war or go work with the government overseas, they will be held accountable for their role in whatever violations their employees may commit,” said Katherine Gallagher, senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represented the plaintiffs.
Stjepan Meštrović, a sociology professor at Texas A&M University and expert witness in multiple courts-martial of soldiers who served at Abu Ghraib, said the case strongly depended on the legal definition of conspiracy, which does not require an obvious act but can include cooperation with others in engaging in torture.
The case was filed 16 years ago in 2008 under the Alien Tort Statute that allows noncitizens to bring cases involving clear violations of international law with substantial connection to the U.S. to an American federal court, The Intercept reported.
“It was the United States that invaded Iraq, it was the United States that detained our clients, and it was a U.S. company that profited from their torture and abuse,” Gallagher said.
During the trial, CACI argued that although employees may have been involved, American soldiers were mainly responsible for the abuse occurring in the prison, according to The Intercept’s coverage.
But, the jury was not persuaded by the defense contractors’ statement, suggesting there wasn’t sufficient evidence to prove that their employees abused the three Iraqi men—Suhail Najim Abdullah Al Shimari, Salah Hasan Nusaif Al-Ejaili, and Asa’ad Hamza Hanfoosh Zuba’e—who filed the case.
The Plaintiffs testified, said The Intercept, that they experienced sexual abuse and harassment and were beaten and threatened with dogs in the early 2000s at Abu Ghraib.
“My body was like a machine,” said Al-Ejaili, one of the plaintiffs and a former journalist with Al Jazeera previously said, “The only part I owned was my brain, which could not be stopped by the black plastic bag they used to cover my head,” The Intercept wrote.
“This ruling opens the door to future findings of responsibility based upon conspiracy to commit war crimes by civilian contractors and other adjuncts to military forces,” Meštrović said in an emailed statement.
As reported in The Intercept article, the case was prolonged for 16 years because of procedural hurdles because CACI tried to dismiss the case more than 20 times. The plaintiffs received $3 million each for compensatory damages and $11 million each for punitive damages as per their request, according to the article.
“It’s exceedingly rare for torture survivors or other human rights victims of the U.S. global war on terror to prevail in U.S. courts, whether against government officials or military contractors,” wrote Shirin Sinnar, a law professor at Stanford University, in an emailed statement to The Intercept.
Sinnar added, “The Supreme Court has made it incredibly difficult to hold the national security state accountable in court. So this victory is exceptional in every sense of the term.”
The trial in which the jury came to a verdict was a retrial after an earlier trial in April resulted in a deadlock among jurors and weeks of deliberation leading the judge to declare a mistrial, according to the article.
Yumna Rizvi, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Victims of Torture, an international nonprofit, says it’s also notable that an American jury sided with the Iraqi men against an American military contractor, stating, “It shows that they’re clearly not in lockstep with the decisions of their government.”
Al-Ejaili was present in the U.S. for both trials but was with his family in Sweden when he heard the final verdict, according to The Intercept, and recalled, “It was pure, profound joy,” when he was notified of the final verdict.
