Detainees at Abu Ghraib win $42 MILLION in settlement against US defense contractor CACI

A federal jury in Alexandria, VA awarded abused prisoners at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib jail $42 million in compensation Tuesday. It is the first time a federal court has found a private sector defense contractor liable for the mistreatment of detainees at the center. CACI International Inc. was hired by the US government to assist in the interrogation of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. The three plaintiffs, an Iraqi journalist, a school principal, and a fruit seller, sued CACI for conspiring with American soldiers to torture prisoners.

“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,” Katherine Gallagher, senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, said at a Tuesday news conference, The Intercept reported. The center represented the plaintiffs and brought the lawsuit forward.

“They need to have far better oversight over their employees to ensure that something like what happened at Abu Ghraib never happens again.”

The crux of the case was how conspiracy is defined by law, in that it doesn’t require an obvious act of malfeasance but can simply mean to cooperate with those who are administering the torture, Stjepan Meštrović told The Intercept. He is a sociology professor at Texas A&M University and has been an expert witness in the courts-martial of several soldiers charged for their acts at Abu Ghraib. “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,” he told The Intercept in an emailed statement.

CACI argued that while it acknowledged the abuse at the prison, the US Army was in control and CACI employees were merely involved in the process. The company also insisted there was no conclusive evidence that CACI employees actually tortured anyone and that army personnel were responsible. The jury was not in accord with that argument.

Plaintiffs will receive $3 million each for compensatory damages and $11 million for punitive damages – exactly as requested. Baher Azmy, legal director at the Center for Constitutional Rights, told reporters at Tuesday’s news conference that the verdict “sends a strong message that this kind of corporate malfeasance and neglect and recklessness and deflection is outrageous and deserves to be punished.”

Plaintiffs Suhail Najim Abdullah Al Shimari, Salah Hasan Nusaif Al-Ejaili, and Asa’ad Hamza Hanfoosh Zuba’e testified about facing harassment and sexual abuse, as well as being threatened with dogs and being beaten. The case was first brought forward in 2008 under the Alien Torture Statute. CACI has attempted over 20 times to dismiss the suit, and the November trial was a retrial after a jury in April was deadlocked and the judge declared a mistrial.