Justice Abroad

Judge dismisses lawsuit against CACI International Inc.

March 9, 2013 | Justice Abroad

A judge dealt a severe blow Friday to a long-running torture lawsuit filed against military contractor CACI International Inc. by four Iraqis who say they suffered abuse at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.

At a hearing in U.S. District Court, Judge Gerald Bruce Lee tossed out claims that CACI conspired to torture the four men who filed the suit. Some other claims can still go forward, including allegations that CACI aided and abetted torture, but will be difficult to prove.

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The conspiracy claims were critical to the lawsuit because the four prisoners make no allegation that they suffered harm directly at the hands of CACI employees, who worked as contract interrogators at Abu Ghraib. The conspiracy claim rested on the theory that CACI as a corporation actively engaged in a plot to torture prisoners, a theory Lee said was unsupported by the facts.

“I need to have facts about what happened to these plaintiffs” that directly relate to CACI, Lee said during Friday’s hearing.

Baher Azmy, a lawyer for the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents the plaintiffs, was disappointed by the ruling, but said Lee’s decision still allows the plaintiffs to refile their claims to include facts that would support a conspiracy claim. Azmy said fact-finding is ongoing — one of the plaintiffs gave a deposition Wednesday, as has former Staff Sgt. Ivan “Chip” Frederick, the highest-ranking soldier to be convicted after horrific photos depicting abuse suffered by Abu Ghraib prisoners were released in 2004.

Lee also dismissed parent company CACI International Inc. from the suit, leaving only a subsidiary — CACI Premier Technology, which employed the contract interrogators — as a defendant. The dismissal of the parent company could limit the plaintiffs’ ability to collect damages if they eventually prevail.

In the lawsuit, the former prisoners claimed CACI conspired in a pattern of abuse, including mock executions, beatings, electric shocks and other humiliating treatment. One of the men said he was kept at the prison for more than four years without ever being charged before his 2008 release.

Arlington-based CACI says its employees never even came in contact with the plaintiffs. In court papers, they say it defies common sense for the company to have actively engaged in a torture conspiracy, saying the company had nothing to gain by doing so.

The lawsuit was first filed in 2008. At a preliminary stage, Lee had issued rulings favorable to the plaintiffs. At Friday’s hearing, though, he said that a 2009 U.S. Supreme Court case, Ashcroft v. Iqbal, changed the legal landscape and tightened the requirements for demonstrating that higher-ups can be implicated in a conspiracy claim.

While some CACI interrogators were implicated in improper conduct in military investigations of the Abu Ghraib scandal, none have ever faced criminal charges. And CACI has never been found liable for Abu Ghraib abuses in a civil case.

Last year, a different contractor at Abu Ghraib settled a similar lawsuit and has since paid more than $5 million to former prisoners held at Abu Ghraib and other U.S.-run detention sites in Iraq during the war.

Halliburton/KBR Burn Pit Lawsuit Thrown out by U.S. Judge

March 3, 2013 | Justice Abroad

Halliburton Co. and KBR Inc. are entitled to the same legal protection as U.S. armed forces when serving as military contractors, a judge ruled, dismissing claims over so-called burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan.

U.S. District Judge Roger Titus threw out 57 consolidated lawsuits against the companies brought mainly by military personnel who claim they suffered damaging health effects from exposure to the contractors’ pits, where items including medical waste, paints and pesticides are burned in war zones.

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“The critical interests of the United States could be compromised if military contractors were left ‘holding the bag’ for claims made by military and other personnel that could not be made against the military itself,” Titus said in a decision released yesterday in Greenbelt, Maryland."

The remedy for the allegedly injured service members is through military and legislative processes, not the courts, Titus said.

Andrew Farley, KBR’s executive vice president and general counsel, said in an e-mailed statement that the company is pleased by the ruling, especially its emphasis on non-judicial means of redress.

“We look to the courts to continue this positive trend in other pending cases,” Farley said.

Susan Burke, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said in a phone interview that Titus’s ruling will be appealed. She declined to comment further.

A phone call to Halliburton requesting comment on the ruling wasn’t immediately returned.

Contract Terms

The plaintiffs claim that the Houston-based companies ignored the terms of contracts with the U.S. that required safe and environmentally sound waste disposal for troops.

Titus’s decision marks a reversal of an earlier ruling in the same set of cases.

In September 2010, Titus said that KBR, the largest U.S. military contractor, and Halliburton must face the suits and that “courts must be prepared to adjudicate cases that ultimately expose defense contractors to appropriate liability.”

In yesterday’s decision, Titus cited a September 2011 ruling by the U.S. appeals court in Richmond in an unrelated case where the court said a soldier’s claim against KBR for injuries from electric shock was barred by the “political question doctrine.” The doctrine prevents courts from reviewing certain actions taken by other branches of government.

‘Binding Precedent’

That case “creates new, binding precedent with respect to whether this court has subject matter jurisdiction over plaintiffs’ claims,” Titus wrote.

KBR faces other suits alleging harm from its military contracting activities and has said it will appeal an $85 million jury award to 12 U.S. soldiers who claim the company negligently exposed them to toxic chromium dust at a worksite in Iraq in 2003.

The case is In Re KBR Inc. (KBR), Burn Pit Litigation, 09-2083, U.S. District Court for Maryland (Greenbelt).

Former Blackwater Executives Plead Guilty to Weapons Charges

February 22, 2013 | Justice Abroad

The criminal investigation into the military contractor formerly known as Blackwater concluded Thursday when two executives pleaded guilty to misdemeanor firearms charges. Former Blackwater president Gary Jackson and former vice-president Bill Matthews each pleaded guilty to one count of failure to make and maintain records related to firearms. U.S. District Judge Louise Flanagan sentenced each to four months house arrest and fined them $5,000 each.

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In August, the company admitted to lawbreaking that ranged from possessing illegal machine guns at its Camden County training grounds to attempting to land $15 billion in oil and defense contracts in southern Sudan while U.S. companies were barred from doing business there.

The company agreed to pay a fine of up to $7.5 million and entered a deferred prosecution agreement that will essentially expire after three years of good corporate behavior. Only the corporation admitted wrongdoing in that deal.

Thursday’s guilty pleas relate to one of the admissions from the agreement struck in August.

Blackwater used illegal methods of circumventing federal firearm laws when it acquired two Steyr machine guns in 2003 and never registered them as required by federal law. The company acquired 17 AK-47s and 17 M-4s, which it did not properly register with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Instead, the company claimed that it was simply storing the guns for the Camden County Sheriff’s Office.

Blackwater was technically a private firearms dealer, and as such could not possess more than two fully automatic weapons, but law enforcement agencies can.

Tiny Camden County had just 12 full-time deputies at the time, and major violent crimes are a rarity. Blackwater also employed a high-ranking officer at the sheriff’s office as a trainer. After several name changes, the firm is now called Academi.

In recent years, Blackwater has been embroiled in numerous civil and criminal cases. The company agreed in 2010 to pay the State Department $42 million for matters related to the agreement struck in August. The company settled with the families of army officers killed when a Blackwater airplane flying without a flight plan crashed into an Afghan mountain.

Four former employees face weapons and manslaughter charges for a 2007 shooting in a Baghdad square that killed 17 Iraqis. Another guard pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in that case. Two former Blackwater guards were convicted of manslaughter last year for the murder of two Afghans in 2009.

Blackwater was founded by Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL whose father made his fortune manufacturing auto parts. Prince is a staunch conservative with extensive political connections in Republican and evangelical Christian circles. He built Blackwater into the nation’s biggest private trainer of the military and police at its sprawling compound in Camden and Currituck counties. The company provided security to diplomats in Iraq and Afghanistan, and held a number of classified contracts with intelligence agencies.

Prince’s primary customer was the U.S. government. According to USAspending.gov, Blackwater was paid at least $2.4 billion in federal contracts.

Prince, who has not been charged, has started a private equity investment fund, Frontier Research Group, which aims to provide security, logistical and management services to projects in Africa.

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