Lawsuit over Tortured Iraqis to Move Forward
Posted: Monday, March 30th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
A federal judge has given the go ahead for an Iraqi torture lawsuit to continue, despite claims from a defence contractor that the lawsuit should be thrown out. The lawsuit was filed over allegations that civilian American interrogators severely mistreated and tortured Iraqis at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.
The defence contractor, CACI, had claimed that the company was immune from laibility over claims of war crimes, civil conspiracy, and physical abuse, but this claim was rejected by U.S. District Court Judge Gerald Bruce Lee, who said that the lawsuit could press ahead.
According to reports four Iraqi detainees have filed lawsuits claiming that they were beaten, mistreated, and subjected to severe physical and mental abuse in the Baghdad Central Prison by soldiers and civilian contractors that were assigned to the prison.
The federal judge said in a statement: “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. Consequently, the court holds that plaintiffs’ claims pose no political question and are therefore justiciable.”
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