Former Iraqi detainees sue U.S. military contractors
By Daren Butler

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Four Iraqi men are suing U.S. military contractors who they say tortured them while they were detained in Abu Ghraib prison, according to lawsuits being filed at U.S. federal courts on Monday.

The lawsuits allege the contractors committed violations of U.S. law, including torture, war crimes and civil conspiracy.

The scandal over the treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib unleashed a wave of global condemnation against the United States when images of abused prisoners surfaced in 2004.

The four plaintiffs, all later released without charge, described their experiences to Reuters on Monday at an Istanbul hotel, where they periodically meet their U.S. legal team. They gave accounts of beatings, electric shocks and mock executions.

Farmer Suhail Naim Abdullah Al-Shimari, 49, said he was caged, beaten, threatened with dogs and given electric shocks during more than four years in detention. He was released in March without being charged and without any judicial process.

“I lost my house, my family were made homeless and left without a breadwinner. I lost four-and-a-half years of my life and all they did was say sorry,” he told Reuters.

Some lower-ranking soldiers have been convicted in military courts in connection with the physical abuse and sexual humiliation of Abu Ghraib detainees.

The latest lawsuits follow a similar one launched in early May in federal court in Los Angeles by another former Abu Ghraib detainee, Emad Al-Janabi. The latest plaintiffs sought unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

“This litigation will contribute to the true history of Abu Ghraib. These innocent men were senselessly tortured by U.S. companies that profited from their misery,” said Susan L. Burke, one of the attorneys representing the detainees.

The lawsuits were being filed where the contractors reside. They named CACI International Inc, CACI Premier Technology, L-3 Services Inc and three individual contractors.

The first suit was filed on Monday in Seattle, Washington, and the others were being filed in Maryland, Ohio and Michigan.

CACI provided interrogators at Abu Ghraib and L-3 provided translators at the prison.

Sa’adoon Ali Hameed Al-Ogaidi, a 36-year-old shopkeeper and father of four, described being caged, abused and paraded naked as one of the unregistered “ghost” detainees, hidden for a time from the International Committee of the Red Cross.

“In our Arab culture being stripped naked is one of the worst rights violations. It made me feel ashamed and it has left a deep scar in me,” he told Reuters.

“What I want is for the perpetrators to be brought to justice and punished for what they have done,” he said.

According to the complaints, the contractors participated in physical and mental abuse of the detainees, destroyed documents, prevented the reporting of torture and misled officials about the state of affairs at the prisons in Iraq.

Storm, Saturday.

First time in 44 years. Spain wins the Euro.

The play that sealed the win. One forward, one goalie. One extra push to outrun the last defender. One foot out to pop the ball at just the right moment. Goal.

Take that big house. The one that did not belong to us, yet we were flicking cigarettes into the rocks under the deck, stomping our feet to a live version of Morrison’s Moondance like we owned the place, the street, the planet. Oh and then E. disappeared to sit in his car with the door open, guitar in hands, singing out something that had just come to mind. He seemed to be gone forever. We were turning off Curtis, pouring more rounds when E. finally came back into the kitchen, tears in his eyes. Happily creating enough to cry.

The leather couch I had trouble sleeping on, the ghost of the big screen tv seeming to keep to its shout in the dark. Trying to drift, listening to my roommate obnoxiously screwing my good friend in the next room. They were better friends(or so obviously it seemed). In the morning there were omelets for everyone, records and bare feet.

19 felt so stupid and perfect. I had reason to run, and if said reason couldn’t be found well then I just made up one. Headed north with a thief, drew myself into a world hyphened by backgrounds. Going through what I never imagined, things still stuck to the ribs. Sliding notebooks through condensation rings at the bar, scribbling conversations. I spent a lot of time being the designated driver, drinking Cokes and playing the juke box. There was a night at the Century Bar when I played Ring of Fire and everyone in the place sang or mouthed along. The bar had a backing of dark wood, carved sirens, a large mirror. This is how I watched the vets sing along with Cash, clap each other on the back as they extracted proof from wallets and waved them at us. I remember briefly thinking: oh god I’ll never know anything. We had cold to contend with. When a glass hit the floor it was time to go home. I kept the napkins filled with poems never finished.

I could write that home into fire. I learned everything from this. The day I waited patient on a porch swing rehearsing matter-of-fact words(“stop drinking or you will die//stop drinking or you will die”). Here comes a cabbie bobbing along the tops of the hedge, and the conversation happened—not a sound, not a nod. Afternoons soaked in whiskey all around me. Matt with the postal worker pants, the sweat that never left the front of his hair, the way we walked into the grocery store with a snorkel, towels wrapped like turbans on wet heads, pruned hands. Bought a sandwich and shared it on the hill overlooking Wayne. Fell asleep waiting again. One then two then three. A black eye walks through the door(hidden key in the plant pot hanging, found). The new bruise could not be placed. We had 5am fruit, sucked our knuckles clean of red and grime. I had to get up and scrape paint off houses. Lead paint, flecks that took two baths to properly get rid of. There were phone calls false, and back rooms without doors. Then move. Then Vodka Collins and mixed tapes, being broke. The best sort of fools, the bad sort of way.

titled “hand in hand.” she without arm, him without leg. absolutely stunning.

Found: one Balooga Hula. Home to many desktops, dressers, closets and drawers for 12 years. Oh Balooga. Your skirt still singing that plastic smell, eyebrows on the verge of a wiggle. Welcome to your new title: artifact.

Found: 28 dollars.
Found: a plethora of push-pins.
Found: dictaphone of secrets.
Found: coil of knotted twine and wire. New project.
Found: bruised silver cup containing one slightly used candle, the shade of sepia. From my grandfather’s funeral. Each grandkid(5 of us) received one. Someone warned me about keeping it polished. But I like the tarnish. Like his hands stained from carpentry. The mill.

Found: tarot cards. I give myself a reading. Get lost in counting the cups, the swords.
Found: one sewing needle.
Found: two safety pins.
Found: long lost handwriting.

It’s tired and I’m quiet.
Repetitious thought:
so sweet when you sleep.
Not just comma
but collapse,
body bent half past a pinch.
Head buried in soft,
hips and sheets.
Here, the day starts.
Fingertips first.

It must have been spring. When things started cracking; while the world burst forth with birth I stayed busy slowly dying. Losing my mind. The one thing I feared leaving me the most. I could feel it slipping out from under me, the last thick rug in the house.

Yes, March. R. stood with me at the bus stop even though she didn’t have to wait—she could have headed her direction home but I think she knew. I felt horrible and on fire, my eyes into sirens, and I couldn’t look at her.

I give up, I said. I shook my head.

I tried to hide two hands that shook as I clarified: everything. These drugs are making me crazy. I think too much or I can’t think at all. I’m lost. I’ve never been this lost, R. I can’t do it anymore.

I kept shaking my head, staring at the evening winking out above us, around the buildings. I found myself in an argument with two men standing next to us—over nothing. Over something but the importance of it, my need to give them hell rose over me. I could not find control. I could not stop telling R. about feeling lost, about giving up. Something had my heart, tore the sucker from its socket and held it just far enough away to make me beg for it back. My own arms outstretched. I felt like a fool for wanting to feel so normal.

R. stayed with me and listened. I was afraid to scare her away, but I couldn’t stop. I gave her winds of it, waves that were running into one another. She stayed, she listened. She gave me words in return, carefully. In that instant she tethered me.

I can’t imagine it: if I had been alone. I might have found a way to leave, to run. Or tear my hair out follicle by follicle. Or curled into some wet comma on the ground. She tethered me.

1.5 years + some change later, here I am saying thank you to her. I’m not sure if she knows what her presence did for me, for I never mentioned it because it was embarrassing and things changed and it’s hard to remember, to feel again, how lost I felt then. Off the medication, a galaxy away. But there isn’t a forget. I will strand a dotted line to it for the rest of my life, to know where not to go, no matter how tough the going gets. R. means the world to me. I’ve never met such a heart, such a soul. She is a light, a mermaid, chakra all her own. She is an understanding, a patience. Her friendship colors in my world.

When someone is strong for me, I want to be strong for them. I wish R. didn’t have to see me in such a state, but you cannot just extinct your witnesses. Truth—I trust no one else with that moment, being there.

My lady on the mountain seemingly so far away sometimes, thank you.