Suit by 5 ex-captives of CIA can proceed, appeals panel rules

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 say they were tortured.

By Carol J. Williams
LA Times
April 28, 2009

Five men who claim to have been kidnapped and tortured at the direction of CIA agents are entitled to their day in court to expose alleged U.S. government abuse of terrorism suspects, a federal appeals panel ruled Tuesday.

Both former President George W. Bush and President Obama had invoked the state secrets privilege in urging courts to dismiss a lawsuit in which the prisoners described interrogations involving beatings, electric shocks and laceration by scalpel.

While acknowledging that some evidence might be classified and properly shielded from public scrutiny, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the president's powers to protect against intelligence disclosures "are not the only weighty constitutional values at stake."

The ruling sends back for trial the case of Mohamed vs. Jeppesen Dataplan Inc. -- a suit brought by five men subjected to "extraordinary rendition," in which terrorism suspects were snatched by U.S. and foreign agents and flown to secret CIA interrogation sites.

(More here.)