RICHMOND, Va. (RTW News) — A federal appeals court was scheduled to hear oral arguments Tuesday regarding an appeal from U.S. military contractor CACI, which was ordered to pay $42 million for its role in the torture and mistreatment of three former detainees at Iraq’s notorious Abu Ghraib prison.
Based in Reston, Virginia, CACI is appealing a civil lawsuit verdict from last year in 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 victims of brutal treatment including beatings, sexual abuse, and forced nudity during the U.S. occupation of Iraq. A jury awarded them $3 million in compensatory damages and an additional $11 million each in punitive damages.
Although the detainees did not claim that CACI's interrogators inflicted the abuse themselves, they argued that CACI was complicit due to its interrogators conspiring with military police to administer harsh treatment designed to "soften up" detainees prior to questioning.
CACI supplied interrogators to the prison and maintains its employees did not directly inflict abuse on the plaintiffs. Throughout the 17 years of litigation, CACI has emphasized its absence of wrongdoing in the situation.
The civil trial last year was the first instance in which a U.S. jury heard claims from Abu Ghraib detainees in two decades since the graphic photos of the abuse outraged the world.
Released in 2004, these images depicted the harrowing treatment of detainees, including photos of naked prisoners stacked in pyramids and individuals hooded and attached to electrical wires. While military police have faced convictions in military courts for their roles in the abuse, civilian interrogators from CACI have never been charged, despite military investigations concluding that some had engaged in misconduct.
The $42 million awarded to the plaintiffs coincides with the amount they sought and surpasses the $31 million that CACI reportedly received to provide interrogators to Abu Ghraib.
