Legal News

Torture Suit Against Rumsfeld Allowed to Proceed

By Ashby Jones

Since his resignation as Defense Secretary in 2006, Donald Rumsfeld has mostly followed the script, living the life of a retired high-ranking White House official. He’s worked on a book (due out this year), served as a fellow at a prestigious school (Stanford), and worked on setting up a foundation devoted to public service.

He’s also had to defend himself against a lawsuit, filed in 2006, which attempts to hold him responsible for the alleged torture by U.S. forces of two Americans who worked for an Iraqi contracting firm.

A ruling on Friday guaranteed that Rumsfeld will have to defend himself against it for a while longer. The Chicago federal judge overseeing the suit, Wayne Andersen, denied Rumsfeld’s motion to dismiss the suit, holding that the plaintiffs had alleged enough to open up discovery. Click here for the AP story; here for Judge Andersen’s ruling; here for a National Law Journal story on the ruling.

According to the AP story, Andersen dismissed two of the lawsuit’s three counts but let the plainitiffs, Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel, go forward with one alleging that they were unconstitutionally tortured under procedures approved by Rumsfeld. Justice Department spokesman Charles Miller said the department, which is representing Rumsfeld, “is reviewing the court’s decision.”

The suit alleges that Vance and Ertel went to Iraq in fall 2005 to work for an Iraqi-owned contracting firm. While there, the duo allegedly saw fellow employees making payments to “certain Iraqi sheikhs” and performing other acts that Vance and Ertel suspected wouldn’t be smiled upon by U.S. officials.

According to the suit, Vance contacted the FBI but the FBI allegedly turned on Vance and Ertel, and on April 14, 2006, the two were taken into custody and were held for several weeks.

While in custody, they say they were subjected to sleep deprivation, long hours of interrogation, hunger and a practice known as “walling” in which subjects are blindfolded and walked into walls.

The suit accuses Rumsfeld of personally taking part in determining such methods were acceptable for use by the military in Iraq.

Andersen said his decision “represents a recognition that federal officials may not strip citizens of well-settled constitutional protections against mistreatment simply because they are located in a tumultuous foreign setting.”

Photo: AP

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 08, 2010 (boomark / email).