Plaintiffs in the Abu Ghraib torture lawsuit are suing the wrong people, according to a lawyer for the military contractor being sued. “If you believe they were abused … tell them to make their claim against the U.S. government,” said John O’Connor, defense attorney for Reston, Virginia-based military contractor CACI, during closing arguments at the civil trial in federal court. “Why didn’t they sue the people who actively abused them?” The lawsuit brought by the three former Abu Ghraib detainees marks the first time a U.S. jury has weighed claims of abuse at the prison, which was the site of a worldwide scandal 20 years ago when photos became public showing U.S. soldiers smiling as they inflicted abusive and humiliating treatment on detainees in the months after the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq.
The suit alleges that civilian interrogators supplied by CACI to Abu Ghraib contributed to the torture the plaintiffs by conspiring with military police to “soften up” detainees for interrogations. CACI, in its closing arguments, relied in part on a legal theory known as the “borrowed servant doctrine,” which states an employer can’t be liable for its employees’ conduct if another entity is controlling and directing those employees’ work. In this case, CACI says the Army was directing and controlling its employees in their work as interrogators. Lawyers for the plaintiffs disputed that CACI relinquished control of its interrogators to the Army. At trial, they introduced evidence that CACI’s contract with the Army required CACI to supervise its own employees.
All three plaintiffs testified to horrible treatment including beatings, s, being threatened with dogs and forced to wear women’s underwear, but said the abuse was either inflicted by soldiers, or by civilians who couldn’t be identified as CACI workers. In some cases, the detainees said they couldn’t see who was abusing them because they had bags over their heads.
A two retired generals who investigated the Abu Ghraib scandal in 2004 testified that CACI interrogators engaged in misconduct. The Army asked CACI to fire one of its interrogators, Dan Johnson, after one of the Abu Ghraib photos showed Johnson interrogating a detainee who was forced into an awkward crouching position that investigators concluded was an illegal stress position. CACI contested Johnson’s dismissal.
O’Connor said that out of the many hundreds of photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib, the photo of Johnson is the only one depicting a CACI employee. The trial was delayed by more than 15 years of legal wrangling and questions over whether CACI could be sued.
