Torture Liability for Rendition Aircraft Company

(noon. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

On Monday, the Obama administration may answer some lingering questions about the parameters of our torture policies now that Bush is history. Oral argument is scheduled to address whether Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen Dataplan can face trial on civil liability for torture based on its role in extraordinary rendition flights (pdf file).  Five men claiming that they were tortured by the US alleged that Jeppesen transported the rendered prisoners to countries known for torture or to CIA black site prisons. A federal district court dismissed the lawsuit when Bush invoked the state secrets privilege. The issue is now on appeal before the 9th Circuit. This is not an either/or issue: The courts have authority to protect our national security, promote governmental transparency and redress harms to torture victims.  

The complaint alleges that the US rendered Ethiopian citizen Binyam Mohamed first to a Moroccan prison and then to a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan. He was tortured at both prisons.  Mohamed is now at Guantánamo. Additional plaintiffs include Italian citizen Abou Elkassim Britel, who was rendered from Pakistan to Moroccan agents who tortured him and Egyptian citizen Ahmed Agiza was rendered from Sweden to Egypt, where he was tortured.

Please listen to families telling what happened to these men:

This case raises a few questions:

(1)  Do torture victims have a right to a trial to determine the civil liability of a company that knew it was aiding or abetting torture?

A former Jeppesen employee quit after learning first hand that he worked in the outsourcing torture business. During an internal corporate meeting, Bob Overby, a managing director, stated:

“We do all of the extraordinary rendition flights-you know, the torture flights. Let’s face it, some of these flights end up that way.”

The Jeppsen employee was informed that two of its trip planners worked on the rendition flights, or, as another employee stated, “We do the spook flights.”

(2)  Should a company be allowed to profit as a business for torture?

As Jane Mayer reported in 2006, Jeppesen is a publicly traded company that managed the “logistical and navigational details for these trips, including flight plans, clearance to fly over other countries, hotel reservations, and ground-crew arrangements.”  Jeppesen specializes in aeronautical charting or Jepp charts.

For Jeppesen, torture rendition flights were a business, indeed, a very profitable business. As Overby stated:

“It certainly pays well. They”-the C.I.A.-“spare no expense. They have absolutely no worry about costs. What they have to get done, they get done.”

There are financial benefits and power associated with the status of publicly traded company. Should a company complicit in torture be entitled to those benefits but none of the liabilities flowing from inhumane, immoral, and unethical actions?

(3)  Should our government invoke state secrets privilege to dismiss lawsuits even when much of the information has been publicly disclosed?

The Bush team argued that  state secrets privilege was appropriate based upon the “purported harm to foreign relations that would flow if the participation of foreign governments in CIA intelligence activities” (pdf file) was confirmed by civil lawsuits. However, the ACLU brief cites case law holding that published information does not constitute state secrets.

There has been a vast reservoir of public disclosures:

Simply put, the core allegations of this lawsuit – that the CIA seizes foreign nationals and transports them to foreign or U.S.-run detention facilities; that other nations cooperate in these activities; that corporations, including Jeppesen, play an integral role in the CI A’ s rendition program- are matters of public knowledge, not “state secrets.”

Other nations have already publicly disclosed in their own proceedings “precisely the relationships and information” that Bush characterized as state secrets:

At the time this suit was erroneously dismissed, several nations – including the United Kingdom, Egypt, Sweden, Yemen, and Jordan – had already provided documentation confirming their roles in the capture and/or detention of the plaintiffs in this case.

Just last week, we learned about the British-US relationship regarding Mohamed’s torture. The British government claimed that its court was wrong in its belief that Bush threatened to terminate intelligence sharing if secret CIA documents were publicly revealed. The media then published letters by the US government documenting the cooperation between the US and British governments and Bush’s threats. This same British court also stated that the CIA documents gave

“credence” to Mohamed’s torture allegations.

Moreover, the Swedish government has already agreed to pay $450,000 in damages to Agiza for its role in the CIA’s rendition of him to Egypt for torture, which was confirmed by Sweden and the UN.

President Obama wants to reestablish our moral authority in the world:  A good place to start is following Sweden’s lead of accountability and restitution for the victims.