Mistrial: Abu Ghraib Survivors Detail Torture in Case Against U.S. Military Contractor

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

In Virginia, a historic case against the U.S. military contractor CACI — used to be called CACI — brought by three Iraqi survivors of torture at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq has ended in mistrial after the jury last week failed to reach a unanimous verdict. The lawsuit against CACI was first filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights in 2008. Since then, CACI repeatedly attempted to have the case dismissed. The plaintiffs, Suhail Al Shimari, Asa’ad Zuba’e and Salah Al-Ejaili, had accused CACI of conspiring to commit war crimes at Abu Ghraib. The three were subjected to sexual abuse, other forms of torture.

We interviewed one of the plaintiffs, Salah Al-Ejaili, on Democracy Now! 10 years ago, in 2014. He talked about his time in solitary confinement at Abu Ghraib.

SALAH AL-EJAILI: [translated] These interrogations that happened every two or three days would last for an hour, an hour and a half or two hours, in this manner. The details of the interrogations were different. In some cases, they would bring dogs, then start the interrogation. In other cases, they’d put you in a place and throw cold water or hot tea on you, then start the interrogation. But, of course, all the interrogations were conducted while you were kept naked and hooded, and they’d ask you questions to which you answer. I stayed for 40 days in a solitary cell, and 70% of that time I was kept naked.

AMY GOODMAN: Salah Al-Ejaili, one of the plaintiffs in the case against the U.S. military contractor CACI, or CACI, for torture at Abu Ghraib.

For more on the case, I spoke with Baher Azmy, legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, representing the Abu Ghraib plaintiffs in this case. I began by asking him to talk about the significance of the mistrial and the importance of the case.

BAHER AZMY: Thank you, Amy, for paying attention to this case for over 15 years.

This is a historic human rights case. Say it’s among the many dozens, maybe even hundreds, of cases brought trying to challenge U.S. torture practices in U.S. courts. This is the first and only time torture survivors have come to United States court and been able to actually testify about what happened to them. And all three did and provided just heartbreaking and powerful testimony, that is a credit to their remarkable courage and resilience over these 15 years facing every obstacle that these powerful interests have put before them. But they were able to tell their story.

And even though the jury ultimately was not unanimous, what became clear is — you know, the jury would send out questions to the court periodically after the testimony was finished. That gave us pretty strong clues about what was holding them up. And what was very clear is, first, nobody seemed to question the reliability of their testimony or the fact that they in fact suffered torture or mistreatment. And nobody seemed to question the fact that CACI interrogators, CACI interrogators, were in a conspiracy with the military police, many of whom we know were court-martialed for the abuses at Abu Ghraib, and that that conspiracy existed between CACI interrogators and military police that produced the exact same harms that our clients suffered.

The mistrial ultimately turned on a legal question that was very, very confusing for the jurors. They asked about it three times in court, and ultimately revealed they can’t figure out what the meaning of this legal question is.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain.

BAHER AZMY: Yeah So, among the grab bag of deflections and defenses CACI has thrown out over the past 15 years, most recently they’ve invoked this, I don’t know, 18th century doctrine called the borrowed servant doctrine, which, in theory, suggests if an employer completely relinquishes control of their employees to another entity, even if their employees in that other entity do unlawful acts, you know, CACI would not be responsible. And the jury was confused about the level of control, because while CACI, of course, hired, was able to fire, discipline and supervise them — all of the indicia of employment — sure, they were performing work for the Army. And what the jury was not told is CACI would be liable if there is a kind of joint control.

So, some probably were confused and thinking, “Well, they’re following directions by the Army.” And the others, we actually know from the AP reporting that a majority of the eight jurors agreed with plaintiffs, recognized the obvious, which is these were CACI employees, subject to CACI employment policies, and therefore the company should be responsible for what their employees were doing.

AMY GOODMAN: Instead of?

BAHER AZMY: Instead of nobody being responsible. I mean, this just means that because, you know —

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, they were basically working for the U.S. military, is that right?

BAHER AZMY: They were working for the U.S. —

AMY GOODMAN: Doesn’t this give governments enormous deniability, because they can order people what to do, they work for a subcontractor —

BAHER AZMY: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — and then it’s a no man’s land?

BAHER AZMY: It is a no man’s land. And I think that the way that the court structured the legal theory, it would make any government contractor theoretically immune, because any government contractor loans out their employees to the client, the United States government, to perform work. And yeah, that exacerbates this accountability gap, which, as I said before, recall, military police officers, the co-conspirators with CACI interrogators, were court-martialed and punished and served time. They testified in this trial. And like the military generals, two of them, who did reports in 2004, these military police fingered CACI interrogators and said, “Yeah, they told us to treat detainees like [bleep] to soften up detainees for interrogations, and we were in a brotherhood with them and carried out their instructions, that led to these abuses.”

AMY GOODMAN: OK, we’re talking about a scandal that broke 20 years ago, those famous pictures that came out, for example, in The New Yorker magazine, Sy Hersh’s piece. You’ve been on this case for over 15 years. How come this took so long?

BAHER AZMY: Well, I think when you are litigating against a massively resourced corporation with $8 billion, they will do everything to delay justice as long as possible. And they’ve tried. They filed over 24 motions to dismiss. In many cases, there are just one or two. We’ve been to the court of appeals five times. They’ve tried to get Supreme Court review. That’s their effort to block any kind of accountability.

And what they could not stop is three courageous human beings who stood up against every obstacle and told their story in a U.S. court in a breathtaking, compelling manner. And while we didn’t get a judgment from a jury, we got historical testimony that makes clear, I think, CACI’s responsibility for these clients’ harms.

AMY GOODMAN: So, tell us about these individuals, these three men. We heard one man describing a part of his experience. Talk about what they endured at Abu Ghraib and why they were even imprisoned.

BAHER AZMY: Well, in the chaos following the invasion, the United States swept up thousands of Iraqi citizens and detained them in detention camps all over Iraq. The one we know most about is Abu Ghraib, a notorious torture facility from the Saddam regime. And in that chaos, there was a command vacuum. CACI interrogators sort of took over and started ordering MPs, military police, who were basically prison guards, to abuse detainees in advance of the interrogations CACI would undertake.

And our clients suffered the kinds of abuses everyone suffered: beatings, forced nudity, sexual humiliation, religious degradation. And they talked so powerfully about what that experience was to them. Salah, who we saw, talked about what it was like to be chained and naked among so many other naked men and not being able to make eye contact with others because that would just exacerbate their shame. Asa’ad talked about the first night their being chained, hooded, naked in a freezing isolation cell, crying, crying out for help, and having to urinate on himself because they deliberately would not come to him. Suhail, who is a middle school principal, talked about his forced nudity and the indignity. He said, “I am a principal. I am a man.” And to suffer that level of degradation was really, really painful for them. And a just enormous credit to their courage to come to a United States court and speak about it.

AMY GOODMAN: Baher Azmy, legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, representing three Abu Ghraib plaintiffs in their lawsuit against the U.S. military contractor CACI, also known as CACI. To see the full interview, go to democracynow.org.

That does it for our show. Our video and audio podcasts, you can get them wherever you get your podcasts. Democracy Now! is produced with Mike Burke, Renée Feltz, Deena Guzder, Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Messiah Rhodes, Nermeen Shaikh, María Taracena, Tami Woronoff, Charina Nadura, Sam Alcoff, Tey-Marie Astudillo, Robby Karran, Hany Massoud and Hana Elias. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.