Abu Ghraib inmates sue contractors, claim torture

HAGERSTOWN, Md. -- Three Iraqis and a Jordanian filed federal lawsuits Monday alleging they were tortured by U.S. defense contractors while detained at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2003 and 2004.

The lawsuits allege that those arrested and taken to the prison were subjected to forced nudity, electrical shocks, mock executions and other inhumane treatment. They seek unspecified payments high enough to compensate the detainees for their injuries, and to deter contractors from such conduct in the future.

"These innocent men were senselessly tortured by U.S. companies that profited from their misery," said lead attorney Susan L. Burke, of the Philadelphia law firm Burke O'Neil. "These men came to U.S. courts because our laws, as they have for generations, allow their claims to be heard here."

Three of the lawsuits name individual employees of those companies as defendants. They are Adel L. Nakhla, a former L-3 translator, of Montgomery Village; Daniel "DJ" Johnson of Renton, Wash., who worked as a CACI interrogator, and Timothy L. Dugan of Pataskala, Ohio, who also worked as a CACI interrogator, according to the complaints.

Burke said all four plaintiffs were released from Abu Ghraib without charges after they were held for as long as four years and four months in the case of Dugan's accuser, Suhail Najim Abdullah Al Shimari, an Iraqi farmer.

Al Shimari claims he was subjected to electric shock, beaten, deprived of food and sleep, threatened with dogs, stripped naked, forcibly shaved and forced to watch Dugan and others choke another prisoner.

He claims Dugan, 48, beat an Iraqi civilian suspected of terrorism, threw him handcuffed and hooded from a vehicle, and dragged him across rocks.

Nakhla's accuser, Wissam Abdullateff Sa'eed Al-Quraishi, 37, of Amman, Jordan claims that Nakhla held Al-Quraishi down while a coconspirator poured feces on him.

Al-Quraishi also claims Nakhla and others stripped Al-Quraishi and other prisoners naked and piled them atop one another, separated by boxes.

Al-Quraishi also claims he watched Nakhla hold down a 14-year-old boy while an unidentified coconspirator sodomized the boy with a toothbrush.

Sa'adoon Ali Hameed Al-Ogaidi, a 36-year-old Arabic teacher from Baghdad, claims he was beaten by Johnson, threatened with execution and stripped naked and paraded before other prisoners.

Mohammed Abdwaihed Towfek Al-Taee of Baghdad claims an unidentified L-3 translator forced him to consume so much water that he vomited blood several times and then fainted. He claims the translator and others later tied a plastic line around his penis, preventing urination, and made him drink more, nearly killing him.