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US Appeals Court Upholds Verdict Against Contractor Liable for Abu Ghraib Torture
"This is a huge moment, a win that builds a foundation for a new precedent in the US," said one plaintiff. "Those who believe they are above the law will now think twice before violating human rights."
Mar 12, 2026
A federal appellate court on Thursday upheld a historic verdict against CACI Premier Technology, a military contractor found liable for its role in the torture of three prisoners at Abu Ghraib during the George W. Bush administration's invasion of Iraq in the early 2000s.
The three plaintiffs—middle school principal Suhail Al Shimari, fruit vendor Asa'ad Zuba'e, and journalist Salah Al-Ejaili—are represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights and two law firms. CCR noted Thursday that Al Shimari v. CACI was first filed in 2008 under the Alien Tort Statute and "is the only lawsuit brought by Abu Ghraib torture victims to make it to trial."
These three survivors of Abu Ghraib—where US captors subjected prisoners to broken bones, death threats, electric shocks, extreme temperatures, sexual abuse, and more torture—finally got their day in court in April 2024. The following November, a federal jury in Virginia ordered CACI to pay each plaintiff $3 million in compensatory damages and $11 million in punitive damages, for a total of $42 million.
"This victory isn't only for the three plaintiffs in this case against a corporation," Al-Ejaili said after the verdict. "This victory is a shining light for everyone who has been oppressed and a strong warning to any company or contractor practicing different forms of torture and abuse."
CACI unsuccessfully sought a new trial at the US District Court for the District of Virginia, then turned to the 4th Circuit, which heard arguments last September.
"We affirm the jury’s verdict in full," wrote Senior Judge Henry Floyd, joined by Judge Stephanie Thacker—both appointees of former President Barack Obama. Judge A. Marvin Quattlebaum Jr., who was appointed by President Donald Trump, dissented.
CCR legal director Baher Azmy, who argued the appeal, said Thursday that "we are gratified yet again that the 4th Circuit rejected CACI's cynical arguments for impunity for its responsibility for the torture of our clients, which the jury confirmed in a historic judgment last year. Our courageous clients have waited so long for recognition and justice, and we are happy for them that this judgment affirmed their entitlement to it."
Joining the center in this fight were the firms Akeel & Valentine and Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler. Michael Buchanan, a partner at the latter and lead co-counsel for the plaintiffs, also expressed gratitude "for the court's careful review of this matter and for its decision to uphold a verdict that acknowledges the severe harm our clients endured at Abu Ghraib at the hands of CACI employees and military personnel."
"I have been honored to work on this appeal alongside an exceptionally skilled and dedicated team at Patterson Belknap, which included Andrew Haddad, Alex Mahler-Haug, and other lawyers and paralegals, and with our colleagues at the Center for Constitutional Rights," Buchanan said. "While no verdict can undo what these individuals suffered, this outcome affirms their courage and the fundamental principle that all must be held accountable for their actions."
Al-Ejaili also celebrated the development, declaring that "this is a huge moment, a win that builds a foundation for a new precedent in the US."
"This will cause a positive difference in the future. Those who believe they are above the law will now think twice before violating human rights," the plaintiff added. "Thank you to the US legal system and thank you to everyone who had anything to do with this win."
The appellate court's decision notably comes as the Trump administration and Israel have launched another war in the Middle East: a joint assault of Iran, alongside Israeli bombing of Lebanon. Evidence of war crimes—including attacks on schools, hospitals, and other civilian infrastructure—has quickly mounted, fueling global demands for a diplomatic resolution.
This article has been updated with comment from lead co-counsel for the plaintiffs Michael Buchanan.
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Trump Admin Circulating Plan to Transform Depopulated Gaza Into High-Tech Cash Cow
Under the proposal, the US would take control after "voluntary" relocation of Palestinians from the strip, where proposed projects include an Elon Musk Smart Manufacturing Zone and Gaza Trump Riviera & Islands.
Sep 01, 2025
The White House is "circulating" a plan to transform a substantially depopulated Gaza into US President Donald Trump's vision of a high-tech "Riviera of the Middle East" brimming with private investment and replete with artificial intelligence-powered "smart cities."
That's according a 38-page prospectus for a proposed Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration, and Transformation (GREAT) Trust obtained by The Washington Post and published in a report on Sunday. Parts of the proposal were previously reported by the Financial Times.
"Gaza can transform into a Mediterranean hub for manufacturing, trade, data, and tourism, benefiting from its strategic location, access to markets... resources, and a young workforce all supported by Israeli tech and [Gulf Cooperation Council] investments," the prospectus states.
However, to journalist Hala Jaber, the plan amounts to "genocide packaged as real estate."
Here comes the Gaza Network State.A plan to turn Gaza into a privately-developed “gleaming tourism resort and high-tech manufacturing and technology hub” with “AI-powered smart cities” and “Trump Riviera” resortgift link:wapo.st/4g2eATo
[image or embed]
— Gil Durán (@gilduran.com) August 31, 2025 at 10:18 AM
The GREAT Trust was drafted by some of the same Israelis behind the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), whose aid distribution points in Gaza have been the sites of deliberate massacres and other incidents in which thousands of aid-seeking Palestinians have been killed or wounded.
According to the Post, financial modeling for the GREAT Trust proposal "was done by a team working at the time for the Boston Consulting Group"—which played a key role in creating GHF. BCG told the Post that the firm did not approve work on the trust plan, and that two senior partners who led the financial modeling were subsequently terminated.
The GREAT Trust envisions "a US-led multirlateral custodianship" lasting a decade or longer and leading to "a reformed Palestinian self-governance after Gaza is "demilitarized and de-radicalized."
Josh Paul—a former US State Department official who resigned in October 2023 over the Biden administration's decision to sell more arms to Israel as it waged a war on Gaza increasingly viewed by experts as genocidal—told Democracy Now! last week that Trump's plan for Gaza is "essentially a new form of colonialism, a transition from Israeli colonialism to corporate" colonialism.
The GREAT Trust contains two proposals for Gaza's more than 2 million Palestinians. Under one plan, approximately 75% of Gaza's population would remain in the strip during its transformation. The second proposal involves up to 500,000 Gazans relocating to third countries, 75% of them permanently.
The prospectus does not say how many Palestinians would leave Gaza under the relocation option. Those who choose to permanently relocate to other unspecified countries would each receive $5,000 plus four years of subsidized rent and subsidized food for a year.
The GREAT Trust allocates $6 billion for temporary housing for Palestinians who remain in Gaza and $5 billion for those who relocate.
The proposal projects huge profits for investors—nearly four times the return on investment and annual revenue of $4.5 billion within a decade. The project would be a boon for companies ranging from builders including Saudi bin Laden Group, infrastructure specialists like IKEA, the mercenary firm Academi (formerly Blackwater), US military contractor CACI—which last year was found liable for torturing Iraqis at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison—electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla, tech firms such as Amazon, and hoteliers Mandarin Oriental and IHG Hotels and Resorts.
Central to the plan are 10 "megaprojects," including half a dozen "smart cities," a regional logistics hub to be build over the ruins of the southern city of Rafah, a central highway named after Saudi Crown Prime Mohammed bin Salman—Saudi Arabia and other wealthy Gulf states feature prominently in the proposal as investors—large-scale solar and desalinization plants, a US data safe haven, an "Elon Musk Smart Manufacturing Zone," and "Gaza Trump Riviera & Islands" similar to the Palm Islands in Dubai.
In addition to "massive" financial gains for private US investors, the GREAT Trust lists strategic benefits for the United States that would enable it to "strengthen" its "hold in the east Mediterranean and secure US industry access to $1.3 trillion of rare-earth minerals from the Gulf."
Earlier this year, Trump said the US would "take over" Gaza, American real estate developers would "level it out" and build the "Riviera of the Middle East" atop its ruins after Palestinians—"all of them"—leave Palestine's coastal exclave. The president called for the "voluntary" transfer of Gazans to Egypt and Jordan, both of whose leaders vehemently rejected the plan.
"Voluntary emigration" is widely considered a euphemism for ethnic cleansing, given Palestinians' general unwillingness to leave their homeland.
According to a May survey by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, nearly half of Gazans expressed a willingness to apply for Israeli assistance to relocate to other countries. However, many Gazans say they would never leave the strip, where most inhabitants are descendants of survivors of the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Palestinians during the creation of Israel in 1948. Some are actual Nakba survivors.
"I'm staying in a partially destroyed house in Khan Younis now," one Gazan man told the Post. "But we could renovate. I refuse to be made to go to another country, Muslim or not. This is my homeland."
The Post report follows a meeting last Wednesday at the White House, where Trump, senior administration officials, and invited guests including former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, investor and real estate developer Jared Kushner—who is also the president's son-in-law—and Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer discussed Gaza's future.
While Dermer reportedly claimed that Israel does not seek to permanently occupy Gaza, Israeli leaders including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes including murder and forced starvation in Gaza—have said they will conquer the entire strip and keep at least large parts of it.
"We conquer, cleanse, and stay until Hamas is destroyed," Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich recently said. "On the way, we annihilate everything that still remains."
The Israel Knesset also recently hosted a conference called "The Gaza Riviera–from vision to reality" where participants openly discussed the occupation and ethnic cleansing of the strip.
The publication of the GREAT Trust comes as Israeli forces push deeper into Gaza City amid a growing engineered famine that has killed at least hundreds of Palestinians and is starving hundreds of thousands of more. Israel's 696-day assault and siege on Gaza has left at least 233,200 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing, according to the Gaza Health Ministry—whose casualty figures are seen as a likely undercount by experts.
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'Big Day... for Justice': US Jury Finds Contractor CACI Liable for Abu Ghraib Torture
"This victory is a shining light for everyone who has been oppressed and a strong warning to any company or contractor practicing different forms of torture and abuse," said one of the Iraqi plaintiffs.
Nov 12, 2024
In a landmark verdict cheered by human rights defenders around the world, a federal jury in Virginia found a U.S. military contractor liable for the torture of three prisoners at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison during the invasion and occupation of Iraq in the early 2000s.
The jury ordered CACI Premier Technology to pay each of the three Iraqi plaintiffs $3 million in compensatory damages and $11 million in punitive damages, for a total of $42 million. It is the first time that a civilian contractor has been found legally responsible for abusing Abu Ghraib detainees.
The lawsuit against CACI—filed in 2008 by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) on behalf of Suhail Al Shimari, Asa'ad Al Zuba'e, and Salah Al-Ejaili—alleged that company officials conspired with U.S. military personnel in subjecting the plaintiffs to torture and other crimes.
As CCR noted Tuesday:
The plaintiffs brought their case under the Alien Tort Statute, a 1789 federal law that allows foreign nationals to seek redress in U.S. courts for certain violations of international law. This historic outcome follows 16 years of litigation, more than 20 attempts by CACI to have the case dismissed, and a previous trial in which the jury was unable to reach a verdict. Never before this case had survivors of U.S. post-9/11 torture testified in a U.S. courtroom. It also featured testimony from U.S. generals, CACI employees, and former [military police officers] involved in the torture.
"Today is a big day for me and for justice," said Al-Ejaili. "I've waited a long time for this day."
"This victory isn't only for the three plaintiffs in this case against a corporation," he added. "This victory is a shining light for everyone who has been oppressed and a strong warning to any company or contractor practicing different forms of torture and abuse."
CCR legal director Baher Azmy said that "our clients have fought bravely for 16 years in search of justice for the horrors they endured at Abu Ghraib, against all of the challenges this massive private military contractor threw in their way over the years to avoid basic accountability for its role in this shameful episode in American history."
"We are awed by our clients' courage and by the power of their testimony in court, and we are grateful that this jury knew enough to credit their story over the deflections of CACI," Azmy added. "We thank the jury for affording our clients the measure of justice they came to a United States court to seek."
Like Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib became a byword for U.S. torture during the Bush administration as it waged a worldwide war on terrorism following the September 11, 2001 attacks. The prison's worldwide notoriety stems from the leak and publication in 2004 of photos showing U.S. troops torturing and abusing Abu Ghraib detainees, both living and dead, often with smiles on their faces.
A 2004 investigation by U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Anthony Jones and Maj. Gen. George Fay found that CACI employees participated in and encouraged the torture of Abu Ghraib prisoners.
Investigators found that employees of CACI and Titan Corporation (now L3 Technologies) tortured Abu Ghraib detainees and encouraged U.S. troops to do likewise. Dozens of Abu Ghraib detainees died in U.S. custody, some of them as a result of being tortured to death. Abu Ghraib prisoners endured torture ranging from rape and being attacked with dogs to being forced to eat pork and renounce Islam.
A separate U.S. Army report concluded that most Abu Ghraib prisoners were innocent, with the Red Cross estimating that between 70-90% of inmates there were wrongfully detained. These include women who were held as bargaining chips to induce suspected militants to surrender.
Eleven low-ranking U.S. soldiers were convicted and jailed for their roles in Abu Ghraib torture. Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the prison's commanding officer, was demoted. No other high-ranking military officer faced accountability for the abuse. Senior Bush administration officials—who had authorized many of the "enhanced interrogation techniques" used at prisons including Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay—lied about their knowledge of the torture. None of them were ever held accountable.
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