Mark Bina Quoted in TIME Article About Trial of Abu Ghraib Military Contractor
Mark Bina, a partner in the Quarles & Brady Litigation & Dispute Resolution Practice Group and the firm’s Chicago office managing partner, offered his insight about the significance of the trial of a U.S. military contractor over its alleged role in the Abu Ghraib prison torture during the Iraq war for a TIME article.
The contractor, CACI, which provided interrogators at the prison, is being sued in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., by three Iraqis who were detained and tortured at Abu Ghraib. Bina, who wrote an article for The John Marshall Law Review about contractor accountability, said this case could have significant influence on future similar cases.
An excerpt:
The case will be closely watched because it involves this “unique” statute that’s “not often used in litigation claims,” Mark Bina, an attorney and litigation partner at Quarles & Brady LLP who wrote about contractor accountability at Abu Ghraib, says in an email. He says because of the relatively recent rise of U.S. military contractors over the past 50 years, there’s not much legal precedent for courts to draw from to assess contractor liability in combat.
…
Bina says that it’s difficult to predict what precedent the case could set until a final appellate court ruling, which could be years away. “But the fact that this matter survived summary judgment and that triable claims exist signals that legal risks exist for military contractors operating during an armed conflict,” he says.