| Contractors in iraq face classaction lawsuit { June 10 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active) http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1086445557450http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1086445557450
Contractors in Iraq face class-action lawsuit By Joshua Chaffin in Washington Published: June 10 2004 1:33 | Last Updated: June 10 2004 1:33 Two US companies that supplied interpreters and interrogators to the Pentagon have been hit with a class-action lawsuit in which they are accused of engaging in a conspiracy with unnamed government officials to torture and humiliate Iraqi prisoners in order to boost their profits.
The civil lawsuit, filed in a California court on Wednesday, called for the companies - Titan Corp and CACI International - immediately to halt such activities, and to pay millions of dollars in compensation to the victims.
The complaint was filed on behalf of nine Iraqis by the Center for Constitutional Rights, a Washington-based legal foundation, which estimated that hundreds of other Iraqis could join the action. It also lists as defendants a former Titan employee, Adel Nakhla, who was stationed at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, as well as two CACI employees, Stephen Stefanowicz and John Israel.
The suit includes allegations of rape, electrocution of genitals and other abuse separate from those incidents already catalogued in army reports that have been leaked to the public.
The suit is noteworthy, however, in that it accuses the companies not merely of being negligent in supervising its employees, but of using torture as part of their business strategy.
The companies abused prisoners, according to the suit, because they were intent on providing intelligence of any quality to the military in order to meet quotas and win new assignments in the lucrative private interrogation business.
"In order to meet quotas and crank out information, they simply violated human rights," said Susan Burke, a lawyer at Montgomery, McCracken, Walker & Rhoads, who is representing the plaintiffs.
CACI strongly rejected the allegations, calling them "false and malicious". Titan said it would "vigorously" contest the suit. The company has said its translators were not in charge of handling prisoners.
The complaint offered no details, such as conversations among CACI or Titan executives, to prove the conspiracy allegation. It also failed to identify the US government officials said to have taken part in the conspiracy.
Shereef Akeel, another lawyer for the victims, said his clients had little way of determining whether they were being abused by regular military personnel or private contractors because they were often hooded.
Ms Burke said she was hoping to comb through interrogation reports and other documents to link individuals with the alleged abuses.
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