D.C. Circuit Tosses Gitmo Torture Suit
A federal appeals court has dismissed a lawsuit by four British detainees who contended they were tortured and their religious beliefs denigrated while at Guantanamo Bay.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said the suit against top Pentagon officials and military officers was based on conduct that was within the scope of their duties, and that the detainees’ remedy was an administrative proceeding, SCOTUSblog reports.
The detainees had claimed they were beaten, shackled in painful stress positions, threatened by dogs, subjected to extreme temperatures and deprived of adequate sleep, food, sanitation and medical care. They also claimed religious harassment, saying their captors forced them to shave their beards, denied copies of the Koran, interrupted them while praying, and threw a copy of the Koran in a toilet bucket.
The men ”do not allege that the defendants acted as rogue officials or employees who implemented a policy of torture for reasons unrelated to the gathering of intelligence,” according to the Associated Press account of the ruling (PDF), Rasul v. Myers.
The ruling said the abuse alleged was the type of conduct the defendants were employed to engage in. “The alleged tortious conduct was incidental to the defendants’ legitimate employment duties.”
The court also held that the detainees were not covered by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
In a second ruling today (PDF), the D.C. Circuit said the Pentagon does not have to release advice it received from outsiders on the creation of legal commissions. The court said the advice was exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. The case is National Institute of Military Justice v. Department of Defense.
