SAN FRANCISCO — Lawyers for five men alleging that a Boeing subsidiary conspired with the CIA in their kidnap and torture urged a federal appeals court Tuesday to allow their lawsuit to go to trial and their abusers to be held accountable.
In the case brought against Centennial- based Jeppesen DataPlan Inc., the former terrorism suspects were denied their day in court two years ago when a federal district court judge heeded the Bush administration’s claim that the case had to be dismissed because its entire subject matter was a state secret.
The suit was resurrected in April, however, when a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Jeppesen’s alleged complicity in the men’s treatment could be tried using unclassified evidence that wouldn’t endanger national security.
Whatever the decision from Tuesday’s rehearing of the case before a full 11-judge session of the appeals court, the losing side is expected to turn to the U.S. Supreme Court to settle the legal question of how far the president’s power to assert his state-secrets privilege extends.
The five plaintiffs are led by former Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian-born British resident who contends he was kidnapped by CIA operatives in Pakistan and flown to Morocco and Afghanistan, where he was tortured into confessing to crimes he didn’t commit.
Lawyers for the men argued that the state-secrets claim was an attempt at masking violations by the government.
Justice Department attorney Douglas Letter reiterated the government position taken since the suit was filed against Jeppesen in May 2007 that the administration would neither confirm nor deny it had any relationship with the Boeing subsidiary or that a program of extraordinary rendition existed.
