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<h1><font size=4><b>Suit by 5 ex-captives of CIA can proceed, appeals
panel rules</b></font></h1><font size=3>The U.S. government cannot avoid
trial by claiming the state secrets privilege in the lawsuit brought by
ex-Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed and four others, who allege they
were tortured.<br>
By Carol J. Williams - LA Times<br><br>
1:32 PM PDT, April 28, 2009<br><br>
The president cannot avoid trial of a lawsuit brought by five former CIA
captives, who allege they were tortured, by proclaiming the entire case a
protected state secret, a federal appeals panel ruled today.<br><br>
Both former President George W. Bush and President Obama's Justice
Department lawyers had argued before federal courts that a lawsuit
brought by former Guantanamo prisoner Binyam Mohamed and four others
should be dismissed in the interests of national security.<br><br>
The lawyers argued that "the very subject matter" of the
allegations that U.S. agents kidnapped and tortured terrorism suspects
was entitled to the protections of the president's state secrets
privilege. In a move that surprised many human rights groups, the Obama
administration declined to revise the Bush lawyers' claims that the case
needed to be dismissed to protect national security.<br><br>
The three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that
the executive privilege claim was excessive and the case could go to
trial. The lawsuit by the five alleged torture victims is against
Jeppesen Dataplan, a Boeing Co. subcontractor accused of complicity in
the men's mistreatment for having flown them to secret CIA interrogation
sites after they were nabbed abroad by federal agents.<br><br>
Previous lawsuits alleging abuse were brought against the U.S. government
and dismissed by the courts presented with presidential claims of state
secrets privilege.<br><br>
Mohamed v. Jeppesen Dataplan now goes back to U.S. District Court in San
Francisco for trial, with the U.S. government, which is backing Jeppesen,
free to argue that specific documents or pieces of evidence can be
protected from disclosure if they pose a genuine national security risk,
but not the entire case, said the opinion.<br><br>
"By excising secret evidence on an item-by-item basis, rather than
foreclosing litigation altogether at the outset, the evidentiary
privilege recognizes that the executive's national security prerogatives
are not the only weighty constitutional values at stake," said the
unanimous opinion written by Circuit Judge Michael Daly Hawkins, an
appointee of President Clinton.<br><br>
Human rights advocates hailed the ruling as the first opportunity for
torture victims to bring the U.S. government to account for its
"extraordinary rendition" actions in which dozens of foreign
terrorism suspects were snatched abroad and transported to secret
interrogation sites by CIA and other agents and subjected to harsh
techniques now recognized by U.S. officials as torture.<br><br>
Mohamed, the lead plaintiff, was released from the U.S. prison in
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in late February after having spent more than six
years in U.S. custody, the first two years in the hands of Moroccan
interrogators under CIA guidance and later at the intelligence agency's
"black site" in Bagram, Afghanistan.<br><br>
Rights lawyers hailed the ruling as a breach in the wall of secrecy
erected by the Bush administration and thus far maintained by President
Obama.<br><br>
"To date, no torture victim has achieved any measure of justice or
compensation in the U.S. courts, in large part because the courts have
allowed the executive to invoke overbroad secrecy claims," said Ben
Wizner, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union who argued the
case before the 9th Circuit panel in February.<br><br>
A Justice Department spokeswoman, Tracy Schmaler, said government lawyers
were "reviewing the judges' order."<br><br>
<a href="mailto:carol.williams@latimes.com">carol.williams@latimes.com</a>
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