Boeing transporting CIA terror suspects to be tortured

The ACLU is suing a subsidiary of Boeing alleging that the company flew CIA terror suspects overseas to be tortured.

The cases involve allegations of mistreatment of Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian citizen, in July 2002 and January 2004; Elkassim Britel, an Italian citizen, in May 2002; and Ahmed Agiza, an Egyptian citizen, in December 2001.

Mohamed is being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Britel in Morocco; and Agiza in Egypt, the ACLU said in a news release.

Mike Pound, a spokesman for Englewood, Colo.-based Jeppesen, said company officials had not seen the lawsuit and had no immediate comment. He said Jeppesen, a subsidiary of Boeing Commercial Aviation Services, provides support services, rather than the flights themselves.

"We don't know the purpose of the trip for which we do a flight plan," Pound said. "We don't need to know specific details. It's the customer's business, and we do the business that we are contracted for. It's not our practice to ever inquire about the purpose of a trip."

ACLU attorney Ben Wizner said Jeppesen could not have been ignorant of the purpose of CIA flights.

"Either they knew or reasonably should have known that they were facilitating a torture program," he said.

Wizner went on to say that companies "are not allowed to have their head in the sand and take money from the CIA to fly people, hooded and shackled, to foreign countries to be tortured."