A US FEDERAL appeals court is due to hear oral arguments tomorrow relating to an appeal by a US military contractor ordered to pay $42 million (£31m) for contributing to the torture and mistreatment of three former detainees at Iraq’s notorious Abu Ghraib prison two decades ago.

Virginia-based company CACI appealed against last year’s civil lawsuit verdict to the Fourth US Circuit Court of Appeals.

Suhail Al Shimari, Salah al-Ejaili and Asa’ad al-Zubae testified at last year’s trial that that they had been subjected to beatings, sexual abuse, forced nudity and other cruel treatment at the prison during the US occupation of Iraq. 

A jury awarded them $3m (£2.2m) each in compensatory damages and $11m (£8.1m) each in punitive damages.

The three did not allege that CACI interrogators had inflicted the abuse themselves, instead arguing that the company was complicit because its interrogators had conspired with military police to “soften up” detainees for questioning through harsh treatment.

CACI supplied the interrogators who worked at the prison. It has denied any wrongdoing and has emphasised throughout 17 years of litigation that its employees are not alleged to have inflicted any abuse on the plaintiffs in the case.

Photos of the abuse released in 2004 showed naked prisoners stacked into pyramids or dragged by leashes. 

Others showed a soldier smiling and giving a thumbs-up while posing next to a corpse, detainees being threatened with dogs and a prisoner hooded and attached to electrical wires.

Military police officers seen in the photos smiling and laughing as they directed the abuse were convicted by military courts martial. But none of the civilian interrogators from CACI ever faced criminal charges, even though military investigations concluded that several had engaged in wrongdoing.

Last year’s civil trial and subsequent retrial were the first time that a US jury had heard claims brought by Abu Ghraib detainees in the 20 years since the photos shocked the world.