The trial was a historic attempt at justice, marking the first time that victims of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq testified before civilian jurors in the United States.
But on Thursday, the judge overseeing the civil case in Virginia declared a mistrial as the jury was unable to overcome a deadlock after eight days of deliberation.
The trial focused on human rights violations committed in prison following the US invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq.
Reports of abuse began to emerge in 2003 and later reached a fever pitch in 2004, with the release of photographs showing smiling American captors next to naked prisoners placed in degrading positions.
The images have become emblematic of the consequences of Washington’s so-called “global war on terror.” Calls for justice continued two decades later.
The issue in the Virginia trial was whether civilian interrogators, provided to the U.S. Army by Virginia-based contractor CACI, conspired with soldiers to abuse detainees as a way to “soften” them for interrogation.
The trial began on April 15 and lawyers for the three Iraqi plaintiffs argued that CACI was responsible for the mistreatment, even if they were unable to prove that the contractor’s interrogators were the ones who directly inflicted the abuse.
Evidence presented in the Virginia court included testimony from three former prisoners: Salah Hasan al-Ejaili, Suhail Al Shimari and Asa’ad al-Zuba’e. It was the first time a victim testified directly before a U.S. civil jury.
They reported being subjected to different forms of torture by US military personnel and private contractors. The result, they said, has been physical and psychological torment that has weighed on their lives for the past two decades.
Al-Ejaili, who was working as a journalist for Al Jazeera at the time of his arrest, described his testimony as something akin to “a form of treatment or medicine”.
Prosecutors also presented reports and testimony from two retired U.S. Army generals who documented the abuses. They concluded that several CACI interrogators were accomplices.
Reports revealed that one of the civilian interrogators, Steven Stefanowicz, lied to investigators about his conduct in prison. They concluded that Stefanowicz likely instructed soldiers to mistreat detainees and used dogs to intimidate people during interrogations.
Stefanowicz denied taking part in the mistreatment in a recorded video statement.
Evidence presented at trial, however, showed that CACI officials had doubts about Stefanowicz’s ability to work as an interrogator – but that he was promoted to the position shortly after arriving in Iraq due to a manpower shortage.
CACI’s lawyers largely argued that its employees had extremely limited interaction with the three plaintiffs. They said any responsibility for the mistreatment lay with the U.S. government.
The abuses at Abu Ghraib came to light largely as a result of an April 2004 report by CBS News.
The image of a hooded prisoner holding electrical wires and standing on a box quickly became emblematic of what human rights groups characterized as large-scale abuses committed by the U.S. military and private contractors after the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
A subsequent report by the International Red Cross concluded that the vast majority of those detained were civilians with no links to armed groups.
The myriad abuses documented at the facilities were, in some cases, “amounting to torture,” the Red Cross said.
A total of 11 US soldiers were convicted in military courts in the following years, with nine sentenced to prison terms.
But it has been difficult for victims to seek other legal recourse. U.S. law largely grants the government immunity from lawsuits arising from war.
In September, Human Rights Watch said the US “has apparently failed to provide compensation or other reparations to Iraqis who suffered torture and other abuses by US forces in Abu Ghraib and other US-run prisons in Iraq two decades ago.”
Instead, the former prisoners sought compensation from the contractors. In 2013, the Center for Constitutional Rights won a $5 million settlement for its Iraqi clients against construction company Titan Corp.
The group also represented the three clients in the lawsuit against CACI. Thursday’s mistrial, however, leaves open the possibility that the plaintiffs could proceed with another trial.
When asked whether they would do so, Baher Azmy, a lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights, indicated that they would.
“The work we put into this case is a fraction of what they endured as survivors of the horrors of Abu Ghraib, and we want to honor their courage,” he said.
Al-Ejaili, one of the survivors of Abu Ghraib, also indicated in a press release that he could continue to seek justice.
“We may not have yet received justice in our righteous case today, but what is most important is that we went to trial and spoke out so the world could hear us directly,” he said. “This will not be the final word; What happened at Abu Ghraib is etched in our memories and will never be forgotten in history.”
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
