Former prisoners of Abu Ghraib prison have the opportunity to sue the US military for the first time

Former prisoners who survived Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison have a chance to sue the US military who tortured and raped them 20 years ago.

On April 15, some of the surviving prisoners of the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq finally had the opportunity to file a lawsuit in an American court against the military contractor who is considered responsible for the torture, writes TRT. For the first time, Abu Ghraib survivors have had the opportunity to present their case to an American jury.

Twenty years ago, pictures of the tortured prisoners in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison against the background of smiling American soldiers began to spread and shocked the whole world.

The plaintiffs cannot be identified in the photos released in 2004, but their descriptions of cruel and inhumane treatment are shocking.

In particular, Suhail al-Shimari spoke about the sexual assaults and beatings he experienced during his two months in prison. He was also tortured with electric current and dragged around the prison with a rope around his neck.

Salah al-Ejaili, a former Al Jazeera reporter, said he suffered from stress that caused him to vomit a black liquid. They were also deprived of sleep, forced to wear women's underwear and threatened with dogs.

CACI, the contractor that supplies the prison with interrogators , denies any wrongdoing and says its employees were not directly involved in the violence.

However, the plaintiffs are demanding that CACI be held liable for creating conditions conducive to torture , citing evidence from government investigations that SASI contractors instructed military police to "soften" their interrogation techniques .

For information, after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, America and its allies in the coalition detained about 100 thousand Iraqis in prisons between 2003 and 2009.