Former Abu Ghraib Detainees
Awarded $42 Million Settlement
Brad Dress / The Hill

(November 12, 2024) — Former detainees of the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq won Tuesday a $42 million verdict in a civil trial in Virginia against a defense contractor that was accused of assisting the US military in abusing prisoners held at the site in the early 2000s.

The verdict against CACI Premier Technology, which is based in Reston, Va., comes after a previous trial in April resulted in a hung jury. A second trial began in late October at the US District Court in Alexandria.

It also comes after years of legal delays before the first trial was ever heard. The plaintiffs first filed the case in 2008.

The jury on Tuesday awarded the plaintiffs — Suhail Al Shimari, Salah Al-Ejaili and Asa’ad Al-Zubae — $3 million each on compensatory damages and $11 million each in punitive damages.

The plaintiffs had described physical torture and abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison, also called the Baghdad Central Confinement Facility, which shut down in 2014.

The worst abuses allegedly occurred between October and December 2003, just months after the US first invaded Iraq as part of the global war on terrorism.

Abu Ghraib was a facility run by the military police as the US looked to track down and interrogate suspects over alleged links to terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda.

In 2004, Abu Ghraib was the center of controversy after photos leaked of the alleged abuse, and the US military later determined mistreatment occurred at the site. Eleven US military officers were convicted and court-martialed over their involvement.

In the Virginia civil trial, the plaintiffs sought to tie CACI to the abuse. The defense contractor had employed civilian interrogators at the time, and lawyers argued that they were responsible for softening up the detainees for the military.

Al-Zubae testified over the spring that he suffers from mental and physical scars from his time at the prison, where he says he was deprived of clothing and blankets, attacked by combat dogs and threatened with rape. Prison guards also threatened his family, he said.

Other allegations of abuse include detainees being beaten with brooms, forced to pile on top of each other while naked and threats with 9mm pistols.

CACI had argued that military police acted of their own accord and there was no evidence tying the contractors to the abuse.

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