ACLU says Boeing subsidiary helped CIA's "rendition" program

NEW YORK — A Boeing Co. subsidiary that may have provided secret CIA flight services was sued today by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of three terrorism suspects who claim they were tortured by the U.S. government.

The lawsuit charges that flight services provided by Jeppesen Dataplan Inc. enabled the clandestine transportation of the suspects to secret overseas locations, where they were tortured and subjected to other "forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment."

The ACLU said the company "either knew or reasonably should have known" that they were facilitating the torture of terrorism suspects by providing flight services for the CIA.

Companies "are not allowed to have their heads in the sand, and take money from the CIA to fly people, hooded and shackled, to foreign countries to be tortured," ACLU attorney Ben Wizner said.

Boeing itself is not named in the lawsuit and would not confirm the reports of a Jeppesen-CIA link, said spokesman Tim Neale, adding that customers have a confidentiality clause.

Jeppesen Dataplan says it provides services such as flight plans, fuel and airport data to airlines, private pilots and various companies, but it doesn't ask its customers for details of their business.

"We don't know the purpose of the trip for which we do a flight plan," said Mike Pound, a spokesman for the Englewood, Colo.-based Jeppesen.

"We don't need to know specific details. It's the customer's business, and we do the business that we are contracted for," he said. "It's not our practice to ever inquire about the purpose of a trip."

Jeppesen had no immediate comment on specifics of the lawsuit.

The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Northern California, but announced in New York City.

The three detainees have claimed through their family and lawyers that they have been tortured and abused against universally accepted legal standards. One claimed to have been routinely tortured under interrogation about al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden. Their attorneys appealed to the ACLU for assistance.

The cases involve the alleged mistreatment of Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian citizen, in July 2002 and January 2004; Elkassim Britel, an Italian citizen, in May 2002; and Ahmed Agiza, an Egyptian citizen, in December 2001, ACLU officials said at a Manhattan news conference.

Mohamed is currently being held in GuantDanamo Bay, Cuba; Britel in Morocco and Agiza in Egypt, the ACLU said.

The ACLU says the suspects were apprehended under the U.S. government's "extraordinary rendition program."

Extraordinary rendition is the clandestine capture and transfer of suspects to be detained and interrogated in countries where the protection of U.S. laws do not apply, according to Wizner.

"American corporations should not be profiting from a CIA rendition program that is unlawful and contrary to core American values," said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU. "Corporations that choose to participate in such activity can and should be held legally accountable."

Neither the CIA nor the U.S. government is named in the lawsuit. Wizner said the executive branch has evoked a state secrets defense in similar lawsuits.

The Bush administration has insisted it receives guarantees from countries receiving terror suspects that prisoners will not be tortured.