U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee, appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1998, denied a motion to dismiss the detainees’ claims by the contractor, CACI International. The Arlington, Virginia-based company is a major contractor to the Defence Department.
The former detainees allege multiple violations of U.S. law, including torture, war crimes and civil conspiracy.
The suit alleges that the CACI defendants not only participated in physical and mental abuse of the detainees, but also destroyed documents, videos and photographs; prevented the reporting of the torture and abuse to the International Committee of the Red Cross; hid detainees and other prisoners from the International Committee of the Red Cross; and misled non-conspiring military and government officials about the state of affairs at the Iraq prisons.
CACI sought immunity against the lawsuits and claimed that the actions of its contract interrogators at Abu Ghraib were beyond judicial review. Court martial and other testimony from the soldiers convicted of abuse has linked company personnel to the abuse.
The court rejected CACI’s effort to shield itself from accountability by invoking the "political question doctrine."
The court reasoned, "While it is true that the events at Abu Ghraib pose an embarrassment to this country, it is the misconduct alleged and not the litigation surrounding that misconduct that creates the embarrassment. This Court finds that the only potential for embarrassment would be if the Court declined to hear these claims on political questions grounds."
The court found "The policy is clear: what happened at Abu Ghraib was wrong."
The court also ruled, "The fact that CACI's business involves conducting interrogations on the government's behalf is incidental; courts can and do entertain civil suits against government contractors for the manner in which they carry out government business. CACI conveniently ignores the long line of cases where private plaintiffs were allowed to bring tort actions for wartime injuries."
The former detainees began their lawsuit in 2004. CACI is appealing the court’s verdict.
Read on.
2 comments:
I couldn't stop laughing as Burr told his wife to get all the money out of the bank. I guess he knows the people are stupid enough to vote for him. Let's see how this one plays out. Maybe Burr will get Sarah Palin to campaign with him for votes.
No immunity for war criminals...and these gangsters most certainly are war criminals. If they are not, what differentiates us from the 'bad guys'?
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