In November 2024, a federal jury in Virginia awarded $42 million to three former prisoners held and tortured at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2003 and 2004. The case, filed in 2008, had been the subject of protracted litigation for over 15 years.

Two years after the United States military invaded Iraq in 2003, the world was shocked when photos emerged of U.S. soldiers grinning while they abused Abu Ghraib prisoners. The trials in this case—an earlier ended in a mistrial—marked the first time that a U.S. jury heard evidence about the torture at the facility, where prisoners were beaten, stripped naked and threatened with attack dogs, and contorted into stress positions intended to induce pain and exhaustion.

Plaintiffs Suhail Najim Abdullah Al Shimari, Salah Hasan Nusaif Al-Ejaili and Asa’ad Hamza Hanfoosh Zuba’e, all foreign nationals, brought suit under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), 28 U.S.C. § 1350, alleging that Virginia-based CACI Premier Tech, Inc., Virginia, “conspired with and aided and abetted United States military personnel in subjecting [Plaintiffs] to torture; cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment (‘CIDT’); and war crimes, all in violation of international law ….”

Plaintiffs testified that CACI interrogators assisted in subjecting them to “violent beatings, stress positions, sleep and sensory deprivation, exposure to extreme temperatures, forcible removal of clothing and forced nudity, sexual assault, humiliation, electric shocks, and threats from dogs and firearms.” One Plaintiff said that he was beaten on the genitals and kept in solitary confinement for a year; another suffered broken bones and vision loss. Their claims of abuse were verified during two investigations by the U.S. Department of Defense. Several U.S. Army soldiers, including former Pennsylvania state prison guard Cpl. Charles Graner, were court-martialed and imprisoned for their roles in the abuse and torture, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Aug. 15, 2011, online].

CACI raised numerous defenses, arguing it could not be held liable under the ATS. The federal court for the Eastern District of Virginia denied the company’s motion for summary judgment in February 2019, finding “sufficient material facts in dispute to permit [three of the original four] plaintiffs’ conspiracy and aiding and abetting claims to proceed to trial.”

The firm then sought to dismiss the case based on derivative immunity; that as a contractor for the federal government, it shared the government’s sovereign immunity from suit. The district court, however, noted that the U.S. “does not retain sovereign immunity for violations of … international law—which include torture, CIDT, and war crimes.” Thus, the company was not entitled to derivative immunity. CACI unsuccessfully appealed, and following remand, it filed two motions to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The company maintained that intervening rulings by the Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS) indicated the company was not subject to liability under the ATS.

Dismissal Motions Denied

On July 31, 2023, the district court ruled against CACI. Although SCOTUS had recently interpreted the presumption against extraterritoriality with respect to the ATS in Nestle v. Doe, 141 S.Ct. 1931 (2021), there remained “sufficient evidence in the record to support a domesticapplication of the ATS.” Reassessing the issue of extraterritoriality under Nestle, thedistrict court wrote that the purpose of the ATS is “to provide foreign citizens with redress for torts committed in violation of the law of nations”—even if they occur within the U.S.

Here, CACI, an American corporation, contracted with the U.S. government to conduct interrogations at Abu Ghraib, which was “effectively under the control of the U.S. military at the time.” Further, there was evidence that CACI officials in the U.S. undertook actions that aided and abetted abuses by its employees in Iraq—supporting domestic application of the ATS. The company’s actions went beyond “general corporate activity,” the district court noted; moreover, its contract with the military was executed and provided for payment “within the United States.”

Included in the evidence were reports from two retired Army generals, who said that several CACI interrogators were complicit in the abuse; one company interrogator, Stephen Stefanowicz, also lied to investigators about his misconduct. A letter from CACI manager Tom Howard warned that Stefanowicz was a “NO-GO for filling an interrogator position.” So he was sent to Iraq as a screener and then immediately promoted to interrogator upon deployment by an Army desperately short on interrogators.

CACI defended another interrogator, Dan Johnson, when the Army sought his dismissal because one of the Abu Ghraib photos showed him interrogating a detainee who was in an unauthorized stress position.

All the CACI interrogators were hired and trained in the U.S. One company employee complained to his supervisor that “NONE of these candidates have the basic qualifications … for the [i]nterrogator position.” But evidence showed that CACI managers in the U.S. “were made aware of detainee abuse” yet “took no action in response or otherwise disregarded the concerns.”

As to CACI’s second motion to dismiss, the court found SCOTUS rulings in three recent cases—Egbert v. Boule, 142 S.Ct. 1793 (2022); Torres v. Texas Dep’t of Public Safety, 142 S.Ct. 2455 (2022); and Biden v. Texas, 142 S.Ct. 2528 (2022)—did not overrule case law that Plaintiffs’ claims regarding torture, abuse and war crimes “may proceed under the ATS, even if the torts occurred in the context of the United States’ prosecution of war.” The district court wrote that the three rulings did not constitute a “material change in controlling authority” with respect to application of the ATS.

It was further noted that the instant case involved claims “that CACI conspired with and aided and abetted United States military personnel in committing torture, CIDT, and war crimes against plaintiffs, which does not interfere with the United States’ ‘prosecution of war.’” Accordingly, CACI’s motions to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction were denied. See: Al Shimari v. CACI Premier Tech, Inc., 684 F.Supp.3d 481 (E.D. Va. 2023).

Two Trials, Verdict Reached

The case went to trial in May 2024, but the jury deadlocked on finding CACI liable. Following retrial, another jury found against the company on November 12, 2024, awarding $3 million in compensatory damages plus $11 million in punitive damages to each of the three Plaintiffs—a total award of $42 million.

“Today is a big day for me and for justice,” Al-Ejaili said afterward. “I’ve waited a long time for this day. This victory isn’t only for the three plaintiffs in this case against a corporation. This victory is a shining light for everyone who has been oppressed and a strong warning to any company or contractor practicing different forms of torture and abuse.”

Plaintiffs were represented by Bethesda, Maryland attorney George B. Mickum IV and Washington, D.C. attorney Charles B. Molster III, along with attorneys from Azimuth Legal Services PLLC in Southfield, Michigan; Johnson/Citronberg PLLC in Alexandria, Virginia; as well as the Center for Constitutional Rights and Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP, both in New York City. See: Al Shimari v. CACI Premier Tech, Inc., USDC (E.D. Va.), Case No. 1:08-cv-00827.  

Additional source: AP News

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