In 2024, a US jury found CACI Premier Technology, Inc. liable for its role in the torture of Iraqi men at Abu Ghraib prison in 2003-2004. CACI was ordered to pay each of the three plaintiffs $3 million in compensatory damages and $11 million in punitive damages, for a total of $42 million.

The civil action Al Shimari v. CACI Premier Technology, Inc. was filed in US Federal Court by three Iraqi plaintiffs who suffered torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. They were supported in their legal action by the Center for Constitutional Rights. The lawsuit alleged that CACI participated in “torture and war crimes at Abu Ghraib prison, where it was hired by the U.S. to provide interrogation services.” (CCR)

The CACI trial heard evidence that CACI contractors participated in abuse and conspired with military interrogators to “soften up” detainees so that they would be more responsive during later interrogations.

CACI was alleged to have failed to act on reports of misconduct by its employees. CACI claimed it was the US military that controlled CACI interrogators and ordered detainee abuses. The jury found that “even though CACI was working with the U.S. military, the corporation still exercised control over its employees and could hire, fire, discipline, and supervise them; therefore CACI should be held accountable for its employees’ role in the abuses.” (CCR)

Sources:

Abu Ghraib Verdict: Iraqi Torture Survivors Win Landmark Case as Jury Holds Private Contractor CACI Liable, CCR, 12 November 2024

USA, Al-Shimari v. CACI Premier Technology Inc, ICRC case summary

In 2023, the Attorney General of Colombia confirmed charges against two executives of the Drummond coal mining company, a US coal mining company with a long history of investment in Colombia. The charges involve allegations that the two executives aided and abetted the crimes of the right-wing paramilitary AUC by financing their activities between 1996 - 2001, including the killing of trade union leaders.

Drummond has denied the allegations, saying that it "doesn’t have and never had any links with illegal organisations, regardless of their origin" and that it "has never financed or provided financial support to criminal structures".

Prosecutors allege that the financing took place through inflated prices paid to a company that was contracted to provide meals for mine workers. The company was allegedly connected to local factions of the AUC paramilitary grouping.

Sources:

The Drummond case, a corporate litmus test for Colombia’s transitional justice, Andrés Bermúdez Liévano, JusticeInfo.net July 2024

In October 2014, four Blackwater private security contractors were convicted in a New York court on charges of murder and manslaughter in connection with the killing of seventeen Iraqi citizens in Nisour Square in Baghdad in 2007. At the time they were providing security to US diplomats in Iraq in the aftermath of the 2003 US-led invasion.

The four Blackwater contractors were not charged with war crimes but were prosecuted on the basis of domestic US criminal law. US Federal Court jurisdiction had been extended to private security providers in Iraq by the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA; 18 U.S.C. § 3216). Three of contractors were sentenced to 30 years, later reduced on appeal, and a fourth to life in prison. All were pardoned by President Trump in 2020.

In the aftermath of the Nisour Square massacre, two civil actions were filed against Blackwater in the U.S. by family members of the some of the victims. These were both settled out of court.

Sources:

Blackwater Guards Found Guilty in 2007 Iraq Killings, Matt Apuzzo, New York Times, 22 October 2014

Trump pardons Blackwater contractors jailed for Baghdad massacre, the Guardian, 23 December 2020

Estate of Himoud Saed Atban, et al. v. Blackwater USA, et al. in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia - Complaint, 11 Oct 2007