US Supreme Court rejects contractor’s Abu Ghraib torture appeal | Human Rights News

Three former Iraqi detainees have accused US defense companies of promoting or instructing their torture in prison.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday brought CACI International Inc one step closer to a trial in a lawsuit filed by three Iraqi former inmates who accused defense company workers of directing their torture at Abu Ghraib Prison, near Baghdad.

The judges declined to hear CACI’s appeal against a 2019 lower court ruling favoring the three Iraqi men whose lawsuit was filed against the Virginia-based company in 2008 under a U.S. law of 1789 called the Alien Tort Statute, that can be used to pursue legal claims for alleged human rights violations.

The 4th U.S. Court of Appeals, based in Richmond, Virginia, refused in 2019 to immediately appeal the company immediately against an earlier ruling by a federal judge that CACI was immune to lawsuit for acting as a government contractor.

The company has argued that it should be protected by a different and more muscular legal doctrine known as inferred state immunity, which can be invoked in certain circumstances to protect state contractors from liability.

The harsh treatment of prisoners held by US forces at the Abu Ghraib facility during the Iraq war turned into a scandal during the tenure of former President George W. Bush after images of abuse surfaced in 2004, shocks and mock executions.

An Iraqi prisoner reads the holy Quran before his release in Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad, June 11, 2006 [File: Wathiq Khuzaie/Pool via Reuters]The three plaintiffs – Suhail Al Shimari, Salah Al-Ejaili and As’ad Al-Zuba’e – are Iraqi civilians who said they were detained in Abu Ghraib and eventually released without charge. CACI has declared the action unfounded.

The lawsuit has failed on various legal issues since it was first submitted to the courts. Before the judges it was about the narrow question of whether the company can appeal immediately against the decision of the lower court, and not about the merits of whether the action should be dismissed.

The lawsuit accused CACI staff conducting interrogation and other services in Abu Ghraib of instructing or encouraging torture, in part to “soften” detainees for interrogation, while managers were accused of covering it up.

In 2013, the US Supreme Court narrowed the scope of the Alien Tort Statute by claiming that it covered conduct in the United States and that violations elsewhere must “touch and affect” US territory “with sufficient force” for them to Plaintiffs can sue.

The judges in this case and two subsequent judgments rejected attempts by corporate defendants to conclude that US-based companies can never be sued under the law. The Supreme Court ruled on June 17 that another lawsuit under the Alien Tort Statute accusing Cargill Inc and a subsidiary of Nestle SA of knowingly assisting in maintaining slavery on cocoa farms in Ivory Coast must be closed .