By DAVID DISHNEAU, Associated Press Writer
HAGERSTOWN, Md. -Three Iraqis and a Jordanian filed federal lawsuits Monday allegingthey were tortured by U.S. defense contractors while detained at theAbu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2003 and 2004.
The lawsuitsallege that those arrested and taken to the prison were subjected toforced nudity, electrical shocks, mock executions and other inhumanetreatment. They seek unspecified payments high enough to compensate thedetainees for their injuries, and to deter contractors from suchconduct in the future.
"These innocent men were senselesslytortured by U.S. companies that profited from their misery," said leadattorney Susan L. Burke, of the Philadelphia law firm Burke O'Neil."These men came to U.S. courts because our laws, as they have forgenerations, allow their claims to be heard here."
Allegationsof abuse at the Baghdad prison first erupted in 2004 with the releaseof pictures of grinning U.S. soldiers posing with detainees, somenaked, being held on leashes or in painful and sexually humiliatingpositions. Eleven U.S. soldiers were convicted of breaking militarylaws, and five others were disciplined in the scandal.
Neither U.S. civilian nor military authorities have charged private contractors with crimes at Abu Ghraib.
Thecontractors named as defendants in the lawsuit are CACI InternationalInc. of Arlington, Va., and New York-based L-3 Communications Corp.,formerly Titan Corp.
Three of the complaints were filed in U.S.district courts in Seattle, Greenbelt, Md., and Columbus, Ohio,jurisdictions where three former workers reside. The fourth was filedin Detroit, where L-3 recruited heavily for translators, according tothat complaint.
The lawsuits repeat "baseless allegations" mademore than four years ago in another case brought by the same lawyers,CACI spokeswoman Jody Brown said in a statement.
"In the yearsthat have passed since these claims first surfaced, nothing has changedto give any merit to unfounded and unsubstantiated claims," thestatement read. "These generic allegations of abuse, coupled withimaginary claims of conspiracy, remain unconnected to any CACIpersonnel."
L-3 didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Threeof the lawsuits name individual employees of those companies asdefendants. They are Adel L. Nakhla, a former L-3 translator, ofMontgomery Village; Daniel "DJ" Johnson of Renton, Wash., who worked asa CACI interrogator, and Timothy L. Dugan of Pataskala, Ohio, who alsoworked as a CACI interrogator, according to the complaints.
Nakhla'swife, Nadine, told an Associated Press reporter on her doorstep thather husband wasn't home. She declined to say how he could be reached.
Johnson'slawyer, Patrick O'Donnell, said in an e-mail the allegations againsthis client are false. "Daniel Johnson went to Iraq as a 21-year-old,fresh out of the Army, in order to serve his country, which he didhonorably," O'Donnell wrote.
Johnson didn't leave a forwarding address after he moved about 10 days ago, his landlord in Renton said.
A phone listing for Dugan went unanswered Monday.
Burkesaid all four plaintiffs were released from Abu Ghraib without chargesafter they were held for as long as four years and four months in thecase of Dugan's accuser, Suhail Najim Abdullah Al Shimari, an Iraqifarmer.
Al Shimari claims he was subjected to electric shock,beaten, deprived of food and sleep, threatened with dogs, strippednaked, forcibly shaved and forced to watch Dugan and others chokeanother prisoner.
He claims Dugan, 48, beat an Iraqi civiliansuspected of terrorism, threw him handcuffed and hooded from a vehicle,and dragged him across rocks.
Nakhla's accuser, WissamAbdullateff Sa'eed Al-Quraishi, 37, of Amman, Jordan claims that Nakhlaheld Al-Quraishi down while a coconspirator poured feces on him.
Al-Quraishialso claims Nakhla and others stripped Al-Quraishi and other prisonersnaked and piled them atop one another, separated by boxes.
Al-Quraishialso claims he watched Nakhla hold down a 14-year-old boy while anunidentified coconspirator sodomized the boy with a toothbrush.
Sa'adoonAli Hameed Al-Ogaidi, a 36-year-old Arabic teacher from Baghdad, claimshe was beaten by Johnson, threatened with execution and stripped nakedand paraded before other prisoners.
Mohammed Abdwaihed TowfekAl-Taee of Baghdad claims an unidentified L-3 translator forced him toconsume so much water that he vomited blood several times and thenfainted. He claims the translator and others later tied a plastic linearound his penis, preventing urination, and made him drink more, nearlykilling him.
Burke and her associates filed a similar federallawsuit in May in Los Angeles, claiming L-3 and CACI employees,including former CACI interrogator Steven Stefanowicz, abused an AbuGhraib detainee named Emad al-Janabi.
All five cases stem froma District of Columbia federal judge's refusal to grant class-actioncertification to a 2004 lawsuit brought by the same attorneys and 237plaintiffs. That complaint, which is still pending, consolidated twocases that originally named Stefanowicz, Nakhla, Dugan and Johnson.They were dismissed as defendants in the original cases for lack ofjurisdiction.
Burke said more workers may be sued, and more plaintiffs may be added to the existing lawsuits.
Tryingmultiple cases has less potential impact than a class-action lawsuit,partly because individual plaintiffs have less clout, said HermanSchwartz, a law professor at American University in Washington. Also,individual plaintiffs may be inclined to settle for less money than alarge group, he said.
