RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A federal appeals court was scheduled to hear oral arguments regarding an appeal from CACI, a military contractor ordered to pay $42 million for contributing to the torture and mistreatment of three former detainees at Iraq’s notorious Abu Ghraib prison two decades ago.
CACI, based in Reston, Virginia, appealed a civil lawsuit verdict issued the previous year to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The plaintiffs, Suhail Al Shimari, Salah Al-Ejaili, and Asa’ad Al-Zubae, testified that they were subjected to beatings, sexual abuse, forced nudity, and other cruel treatments during the U.S. occupation of Iraq. A jury awarded each of them $3 million in compensatory damages and $11 million in punitive damages.
Although the three did not claim that CACI’s interrogators directly inflicted the abuse, they argued that CACI was complicit by conspiring with military police to soften detainees for questioning through harsh treatment.
CACI provided the interrogators who operated at the prison and has consistently denied any wrongdoing, emphasizing that its employees are not accused of directly inflicting any of the abuse alleged by the plaintiffs.
Images of the Abu Ghraib abuse, released in 2004, depicted horrific scenes of prisoners being stacked in pyramids, dragged by leashes, and even a soldier smiling next to a corpse.
Military police involved were convicted in military courts, but none of the civilian interrogators from CACI faced criminal charges, despite military investigations concluding that several CACI interrogators had engaged in wrongdoing.
This civil trial has been significant as it is the first time a U.S. jury has heard claims from Abu Ghraib detainees in 20 years. The awarded $42 million is more than the $31 million CACI is said to have been compensated for supplying interrogators to Abu Ghraib.
