ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A judge declared a mistrial Thursday after a jury said it was deadlocked and could not reach a verdict in the trial of a military contractor accused of contributing to the abuse of detainees at the Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq two decades ago.
The mistrial came in the jury’s eighth day of deliberations.
The eight-member civil jury in Alexandria deadlocked on accusations the civilian interrogators who were supplied to the U.S. Army at Abu Ghraib in 2003 and 2004 had conspired with soldiers there to abuse detainees as a means of “softening them up” for questioning.
The trial was the first time a U.S. jury heard claims brought by Abu Ghraib survivors in the 20 years since photos of detainee mistreatment — accompanied by smiling U.S. soldiers inflicting the abuse — shocked the world during the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
Reston, Virginia-based CACI had argued that it wasn’t complicit in the detainees’ abuse. It said that its employees had little to any interaction with the three plaintiffs in the case and that any liability for their mistreatment belonged to the government, not CACI.
The plaintiffs can seek a retrial.
Asked if they would do so, Baher Azmy with the Center for Constitutional Rights, one of their lawyers, said ”The work we put in to this case is a fraction of what they endured as survivors of the horrors of Abu Ghraib, and we want to honor their courage.”
Matthew Barakat, The Associated Press
