Thirteen years after leaving Abu Ghraib prison, and nine years after filing suit in federal court, a group of former Iraqi detainees got to make the case before an Alexandria judge Friday that they were tortured and that the contractor CACI International is partly to blame.

U.S. District Court Judge Leonie M. Brinkema declined a request by CACI to dismiss the case Friday, saying she would like to develop a full record of which employees were “on the scene, and what was going on.” She concluded there is sufficient evidence for the lawsuit to proceed towards a pre-trial judgment from the court or come before a jury.

Interrogators working for the Arlington-based contractor are accused of directing beatings, starvation, sexual violations, sleep deprivation, and other abuse of prisoners in the detention facility. The three former detainees involved say they were shackled in contorted positions for over a day at a time, left in freezing temperatures in winter, and attacked or threatened with dogs. 

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