Renton man sued in Iraq torture claim

HAGERSTOWN, Md. — An interrogator from Renton and two other individual U.S. defense contractors were sued in federal court Monday by three Iraqis and a Jordanian who say they were tortured while detained at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2003 and 2004.

The lawsuits — filed in Seattle; Detroit; Greenbelt, Md.; and Columbus, Ohio — against the men and the companies for which they worked, say that those arrested and taken to the Baghdad prison were subjected to forced nudity, electrical shocks, mock executions and other inhumane treatment. They seek payments high enough to compensate the detainees for their injuries and to deter contractors from such conduct in the future.

"These innocent men were senselessly tortured by U.S. companies that profited from their misery," said lead attorney Susan Burke, of the Philadelphia law firm Burke O'Neil. "These men came to U.S. courts because our laws, as they have for generations, allow their claims to be heard here."

Daniel "DJ" Johnson, of Renton, and Timothy L. Dugan, of Pataskala, Ohio, who were interrogators for CACI International of Arlington, Va., were named in the suits, according to the complaint. Adel L. Nakhla, a former L-3 Communications translator, of Montgomery Village, Md., also was listed as a defendant, according to the complaints.

L-3, based in New York, and CACI conspired to cover up acts of torture, the lawsuit contends.

A complaint against Johnson, CACI and L-3 was filed in Seattle by Sa'adoon Ali Hameed Al-Ogaidi, a 36-year-old Arabic teacher and shopkeeper in Baghdad, who was taken from his home during the night in late September 2003. He was initially held at Abu Ghraib as a "ghost detainee" — a prisoner without a number or any record of detention, according to the lawsuit.

At Abu Ghraib, the complaint alleges, Al-Ogaidi was tortured for more than a year before being released in December 2004.

Although Al-Ogaidi did not know the identities of his interrogators, the complaint alleges that "facts known to date" indicate that the defendants "conspired with certain military personnel to torture prisoners kept at the Abu Ghraib hard site."

Johnson's lawyer, Patrick O'Donnell, said in an e-mail the allegations against his client are false. "Daniel Johnson went to Iraq as a 21-year-old, fresh out of the Army, in order to serve his country, which he did honorably," O'Donnell wrote.

Johnson moved from his address in Renton about 10 days ago and didn't leave a forwarding address, his landlord said.

Allegations of abuse at the Baghdad prison first erupted in 2004 with the release of pictures of grinning U.S. soldiers posing with detainees, some naked, being held on leashes or in painful and sexually humiliating positions. Eleven U.S. soldiers were convicted, and five others were disciplined in the scandal.

The lawsuits repeat "baseless allegations" made more than four years ago in another case brought by the same lawyers, CACI spokeswoman Jody Brown said in a statement. "These generic allegations of abuse, coupled with imaginary claims of conspiracy, remain unconnected to any CACI personnel."

L-3 didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Burke and her associates filed a similar federal lawsuit in May in Los Angeles, claiming L-3 and CACI employees, including former CACI interrogator Steven Stefanowicz, abused an Abu Ghraib detainee.