Boeing subsidiary lawsuit over CIA flights tossed

Legal World

A US federal judge has rejected a lawsuit against a subsidiary of Boeing suspected of having taken part in secret CIA flights transporting terror suspects, in the name of protecting state secrets, a court source said Thursday.

The lawsuit was lodged in May against Jeppesen Dataplan by several men who say they were taken on secret flights to prisons in Morocco, Egypt, Afghanistan and Jordan, where they say they were tortured.

The lawsuit charged that Jeppesen was a leading supplier of logistics to planes used by US intelligence, and that it carried out 70 such flights in 2001.

The government asked the judge, James Ware in San Diego California, to throw out the case without considering it, arguing it involved secrets that could be neither confirmed nor denied.

After receiving a confidential statement from Michael Hayden, the current CIA director, the judge agreed.

"The Court's review of General Hayden's public and classified declarations confirm that proceeding with this case would jeopardize national security and foreign relations and that no protective procedure can salvage this case," his statement said.

"Thus, the Court finds that the issues involved in this case are non-justiciable because the very subject matter of the case is a state secret," he added.

The planes, which flew under the names of CIA front corporations, are suspected of having been part of the CIA's extraordinary rendition program.

Under the program, terror suspects were abducted and then illegally flown to countries such as Afghanistan, Egypt, Jordan and Romania for interrogation.

Related listings

  • EU Court: Greek Aid Broke EU Law

    EU Court: Greek Aid Broke EU Law

    Legal World 02/14/2008

    The European Union's Court of Justice ruled Thursday that Greece illegally ignored an EU order to recover millions of euros (dollars) in aid it gave to the ailing Olympic national airline.The Luxembourg-based court said Greece "had not fulfilled its ...

  • Venezuela threatens U.S. over Exxon fight

    Venezuela threatens U.S. over Exxon fight

    Legal World 02/10/2008

    President Hugo Chavez on Sunday threatened to cut off oil sales to the United States in an "economic war" if Exxon Mobil Corp. wins court judgments to seize billions of dollars in Venezuelan assets.Exxon Mobil has gone after the assets of state oil c...

  • Egypt Court Upholds Christian Conversion

    Egypt Court Upholds Christian Conversion

    Legal World 02/09/2008

    Egypt's highest civil court ruled Saturday that 12 Coptic Christians who had converted to Islam could return to their old faith, ending a yearlong legal battle over the predominantly Muslim state's tolerance for conversion.The court overturned an Apr...

Grounds for Divorce in Ohio - Sylkatis Law, LLC

A divorce in Ohio is filed when there is typically “fault” by one of the parties and party not at “fault” seeks to end the marriage. A court in Ohio may grant a divorce for the following reasons:
• Willful absence of the adverse party for one year
• Adultery
• Extreme cruelty
• Fraudulent contract
• Any gross neglect of duty
• Habitual drunkenness
• Imprisonment in a correctional institution at the time of filing the complaint
• Procurement of a divorce outside this state by the other party

Additionally, there are two “no-fault” basis for which a court may grant a divorce:
• When the parties have, without interruption for one year, lived separate and apart without cohabitation
• Incompatibility, unless denied by either party

However, whether or not the the court grants the divorce for “fault” or not, in Ohio the party not at “fault” will not get a bigger slice of the marital property.

Business News

New York & New Jersey Family Law Matters We represent our clients in all types of proceedings that include termination of parental rights. >> read