Human Rights First and ACLU File Amended Complaint in Suit Against Defense Secretary Rumsfeld Over U.S. Torture Policies

On January 5, 2006, Human Rights First and the ACLU filed a consolidated amended complaint in the civil lawsuit charging Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld with legal responsibility for the torture and abuse of detainees in U.S. military custody in Afghanistan and Iraq. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of nine men, five Iraqis and four Afghans, who were tortured and abused at the hands of U.S. forces under Secretary Rumsfeld's command. The amended complaint adds as a plaintiff an Iraqi who was detained and subjected to torture and mistreatment on two separate occasions. None of the men were ever prosecuted. All were released.

Since filing the original complaint on March 1, 2005, HRF and the ACLU have continued to update and refine the allegations, including as a result of new information that has comes to light through documents released under the Freedom of Information Act in the ACLU’s lawsuit against the Department of Defense and others, reports of official government investigations, and press reports. Selections from these reports have been incorporated in the new complaint, further demonstrating Secretary Rumsfeld’s command responsibility for the abuse and ill treatment of the detainees.

The amended complaint consolidates the lawsuit against Secretary Rumsfeld with three similar complaints brought by the ACLU against Colonel Thomas Pappas, former Brigadier General Janis Karpinski and Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez on behalf of the torture victims who were detained in Iraq. The cases were originally filed in four separate jurisdictions. The Joint Panel on Multi-district Litigation ordered the cases consolidated and transferred to Chief Judge Thomas Hogan of the District Court for the District of Columbia. In an order issued on December 13, 2005 by Judge Hogan, the defendants are to respond to the amended complaint by March 6, 2006, and the Court will conduct a status conference on March 20, 2006.

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