Two Iraqis Say They Were Victims of U.S. Torture
Nov 14, 2005 — -- Two Iraqi businessmen have sued U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, claiming they were arrested without cause and tortured for months in prison camps all over Iraq, including Abu Ghraib.
Thahe Sabbar and Sherzad Khalid told ABC News in an exclusive interview that U.S. forces arrested them during a business meeting in July 2003.
"Soldiers on our right and our left were beating us all over our bodies," Khalid said. Both men say they have no ties to Iraqi insurgents.
Sabbar, Khalid and six other detainees are being helped by attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights First. Their lawsuit claims their rights under the U.S. Constitution and international law were violated.
"For me, I wished death, to die many times during the torture," Sabbar said. "I wished to die."
It has been nearly two years since news of the abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq broke, and more recently there have been major questions about the legality of techniques used by the CIA and other U.S. agents to extract information from prisoners in Afghanistan, Iraq or at Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.
Vice President Dick Cheney has argued that more hardened suspects should receive harsher treatment if necessary to obtain lifesaving information.
Just last week, the Pentagon released a new interrogation policy that banned torture and the use of dogs to intimidate prisoners.
It is not clear how strong Sabbar and Khalid's case will prove to be in court.
Pepperdine University School of Law professor Douglas Kmiec reviewed their complaint, and said the plaintiffs have several problems to overcome.
"As a former legal matter, the pleading has two difficulties," says Kmiec. "First, they're suing the secretary of defense and the facts that they allege do not tie this horrific events, these instances of torture and beating and sleep deprivation and dietary manipulation to the secretary of defense."
As a matter of legal theory -- whether the eight men have standing to sue for violations of human rights under the U.S. Constitution or international law --
