It has taken ten years, but on Wednesday (February 21), a US judge, District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema of the District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, ruled that “the treatment of three Iraqi individuals formerly detained at the infamous ‘hard site’ at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq constitutes torture, war crimes, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, based on a thorough review of US domestic and international law.”
The victory was described in a press release by the Center for Constitutional Rights, who, with other lawyers, first submitted the case ten long years ago, under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), which “allows non-US citizens to sue for violations of international law committed abroad that ‘touch and concern’ the United States. I wrote about it back in September, when Judge Brinkema allowed the case to proceed.
As I also explained at the time:
In the long legal journey to this important day, as CCR stated, “the Fourth Circuit denied CACI’s attempt to have the case dismissed under the ‘political question’ doctrine” in October 2016, and in June this year the District Court “affirmed that war crimes, torture, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment are well-recognized and definable norms and thus fall within the court’s jurisdiction” under the Alien Tort Statute. The court then “ordered both parties to brief whether the record supports a finding that the plaintiffs suffered these violations,” and, as CCR noted, “Shortly after, CACI moved to dismiss the case,” the move that has just been turned down.
Great news from the District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, where three survivors of torture at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq by employees of a private military contractor, CACI Premier Technology, have finally been told that their case can proceed, 14 years since they were initially held, and over nine years since the case was first filed.
It is now so long since the torture took place that younger readers may be unaware of Abu Ghraib, the prison in Iraq where photos of abuse first surfaced publicly in April 2004, shocking Americans in a way that nothing had previously despite there being such a wide array of brutal, counter-productive policies undertaken in the wake of the 9/11 attacks — from Afghanistan to Iraq, and from “black sites” and proxy torture prisons to Guantánamo. As they say — and this is a sad truth for a writer to acknowledge — a picture is worth a thousand words.
The three men are Suhail Najim Abdullah Al Shimari, Asa’ad Hamza Hanfoosh Zuba’e and Salah Hasan Nusaif Al-Ejaili, and their lawyers at the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) stated in a press release after the ruling that the men, “formerly detained at the infamous ‘hard site’ at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq were subjected to treatment that could constitute torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment,” according to the judge who allowed the case to proceed, Judge Leonie Brinkema. Read the rest of this entry »
Investigative journalist, author, campaigner, commentator and public speaker. Recognized as an authority on Guantánamo and the “war on terror.” Co-founder, Close Guantánamo and We Stand With Shaker, singer/songwriter (The Four Fathers).
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