Vol. 74/No. 36 September 27, 2010
The five had sued Jeppesen Dataplan, a Boeing subsidiary that provided logistical support to the CIA to fly the men to various countries for torture and interrogation. The Barack Obama administration, arguing state secrets were at stake, appealed a lower court decision allowing the suit to proceed.
The lead plaintiff is Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian who is a legal resident of the United Kingdom. He was arrested in Pakistan in 2002, interrogated by British secret police, then flown by the CIA to Morocco, turned over to Moroccan cops, held for 18 months, and tortured. Next, he was flown to a CIA prison in Afghanistan for more torture. Finally he spent nearly five years at the U.S. prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Mohamed has now been freed. Some of the other four plaintiffs, who have similar stories, remain imprisoned.
The ruling accepted the Justice Departments argument that state secrets include evidence of private companies or foreign governments cooperation with the CIA, information about CIA interrogation programs, and information about clandestine agency operations.
At the same time the judges ordered the government to pay all the plaintiffs legal costs, and suggested it pay reparations to the five men it tortured.
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