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Four Iraqis win an appeal in federal court for their case that contractor CACI International Inc directed and engaged in torture
Abu Ghraib baghdad iraq Abu Ghraib, on the outskirts of Baghdad, was a US-run prison from which graphic photographs showing the torture and sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners were leaked to the press. Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images
A legal reckoning for some of the darkest episodes of the US war in Iraq gathered momentum on Monday when a federal court found that Iraqis abused at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison could sue an American corporation involved in their torture.
Overturning a lower court, the US court of appeals for the fourth circuit in Richmond, Virginia ruled Monday that four Iraqis subjected to torture at Abu Ghraib during the 2003-2011 US occupation can seek damages against one of the contracting companies at the prison, CACI International.
It is unclear how extensive the ruling will prove to be for victims of US torture. But not only does it represent a rare instance of judges permitting foreign nationals' pursuit of legal claims against US citizens in a war zone, it comes as Iraqis are travelling to Washington DC to testify in a criminal trial against guards working for the security company formerly known as Blackwater over the 2007 shooting death of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad's Nisour Square.
The four Iraqis suing CACI over Abu Ghraib told the court that their interrogators and guards subjected them to abuses including beatings, forced nudity, being "repeatedly shot in the head with a taser gun", "beaten on the genitals with a stick", and forced to watch the "rape [of] a female detainee".
Employees for CACI, a company performing linguistics and interrogation work for the US at Abu Ghraib, stand accused of having "instigated" and "encouraged" the abuse as well as participating in it, and in aiding to cover it up.
...Although a district court had ruled that the Iraqi lawsuit could not proceed against CACI for lack of jurisdiction, the appeals court on Monday found that the scope of the Alient Tort Statute, an 18th-century law permitting non-US citizens access to US courts for violations of "the law of nations or a treaty of the United States", encompassed the Abu Ghraib legal effort. Relying on a 2013 supreme court ruling on the breadth of the law, known as Kiobel v Royal Dutch Petroleum, the judges found that the alleged torture claim possessed "sufficient force to displace" a presumption against US judges' jurisdiction for crimes committed abroad.
Abu Ghraib torture suit against contractor revived by federal court | Law | theguardian.com
So, then I hunted down Kiobel v Royal Dutch Petroleum
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/10-1491_l6gn.pdf
Abu Ghraib baghdad iraq Abu Ghraib, on the outskirts of Baghdad, was a US-run prison from which graphic photographs showing the torture and sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners were leaked to the press. Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images
A legal reckoning for some of the darkest episodes of the US war in Iraq gathered momentum on Monday when a federal court found that Iraqis abused at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison could sue an American corporation involved in their torture.
Overturning a lower court, the US court of appeals for the fourth circuit in Richmond, Virginia ruled Monday that four Iraqis subjected to torture at Abu Ghraib during the 2003-2011 US occupation can seek damages against one of the contracting companies at the prison, CACI International.
It is unclear how extensive the ruling will prove to be for victims of US torture. But not only does it represent a rare instance of judges permitting foreign nationals' pursuit of legal claims against US citizens in a war zone, it comes as Iraqis are travelling to Washington DC to testify in a criminal trial against guards working for the security company formerly known as Blackwater over the 2007 shooting death of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad's Nisour Square.
The four Iraqis suing CACI over Abu Ghraib told the court that their interrogators and guards subjected them to abuses including beatings, forced nudity, being "repeatedly shot in the head with a taser gun", "beaten on the genitals with a stick", and forced to watch the "rape [of] a female detainee".
Employees for CACI, a company performing linguistics and interrogation work for the US at Abu Ghraib, stand accused of having "instigated" and "encouraged" the abuse as well as participating in it, and in aiding to cover it up.
...Although a district court had ruled that the Iraqi lawsuit could not proceed against CACI for lack of jurisdiction, the appeals court on Monday found that the scope of the Alient Tort Statute, an 18th-century law permitting non-US citizens access to US courts for violations of "the law of nations or a treaty of the United States", encompassed the Abu Ghraib legal effort. Relying on a 2013 supreme court ruling on the breadth of the law, known as Kiobel v Royal Dutch Petroleum, the judges found that the alleged torture claim possessed "sufficient force to displace" a presumption against US judges' jurisdiction for crimes committed abroad.
Abu Ghraib torture suit against contractor revived by federal court | Law | theguardian.com
So, then I hunted down Kiobel v Royal Dutch Petroleum
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/10-1491_l6gn.pdf
