ABC– A Houston, Texas woman
says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company
and the U.S.
government are covering up the incident.
Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at
a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping
container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment,
she’d be out of a job.
“Don’t plan on working back in Iraq.
There won’t be a position here, and there won’t be a position in Houston,”
Jones says she was told.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court against Halliburton and its
then-subsidiary KBR, Jones says she was held in the shipping container for at
least 24 hours without food or water by KBR, which posted armed security guards
outside her door, who would not let her leave. Jones described the container as
sparely furnished with a bed, table and lamp.
“It felt like prison,” says Jones, who told her story to ABC News
as part of an upcoming “20/20″ investigation. “I was upset; I
was curled up in a ball on the bed; I just could not believe what had
happened.”
Finally, Jones says, she convinced a sympathetic guard to loan her a cell
phone so she could call her father in Texas.
“I said, ‘Dad, I’ve been raped. I don’t
know what to do. I’m in this container, and I’m not able to leave,'” she
said. Her father called their congressman, Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas.
“We contacted the State Department
first,” Poe told ABCNews.com, “and told them of the urgency of
rescuing an American citizen” from her American employer.
Poe says his office contacted the State Department, which quickly dispatched
agents from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad
to Jones’ camp, where they rescued her from the container.
According to her lawsuit, Jones was raped by “several attackers who
first drugged her, then repeatedly raped and injured her, both physically and
emotionally.”
Jones told ABCNews.com that an examination by Army doctors showed she had
been raped “both vaginally and anally,” but that the rape kit
disappeared after it was handed over to KBR security officers.
A spokesperson for the State
Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security told ABCNews.com he could not
comment on the matter. Over two years later, the Justice
Department has brought no criminal charges in the matter. In fact, ABC News
could not confirm any federal agency was investigating the case.
Legal experts say Jones’ alleged assailants will likely never face a judge
and jury, due to an enormous loophole that has effectively left contractors in Iraq beyond the reach of United
States law.
“It’s very troubling,” said Dean John Hutson of the Franklin Pierce Law
Center. “The way the law presently stands,
I would say that they don’t have, at least in the criminal system, the
opportunity for justice.”
Congressman Poe says neither the departments of State nor Justice will give
him answers on the status of the Jones investigation. Asked what reasons the departments gave for the apparent slowness of the
probes, Poe sounded frustrated.
There are several, I think, their excuses, why the perpetrators haven’t been
prosecuted,” Poe told ABC News. “But I think it is the responsibility
of our government, the Justice Department and the State Department, when crimes
occur against American citizens overseas in Iraq, contractors that are paid by
the American public, that we pursue the criminal cases as best as we possibly
can and that people are prosecuted.”
Since no criminal charges have been filed, the only other option, according
to Hutson, is the civil system, which is the approach that Jones is trying now.
But Jones’ former employer doesn’t want this case to see the inside of a civil
courtroom. KBR has moved for Jones’ claim to be heard in private arbitration, instead
of a public courtroom. It says her employment contract requires it.
In arbitration, there is no public record nor transcript of the proceedings,
meaning that Jones’ claims would not be heard before a judge and jury. Rather,
a private arbitrator would decide Jones’ case. In recent testimony before Congress,
employment lawyer Cathy Ventrell-Monsees said that Halliburton won more
than 80 percent of arbitration proceedings brought against it.
In his interview with ABC News, Rep. Poe said he sided with Jones. “Air things out in a public forum of a courtroom,” said Rep. Poe.
“That’s why we have courts in the United
States.”
In her lawsuit, Jones’ lawyer, Todd Kelly, says KBR and Halliburton created a
“boys will be boys” atmosphere at the company barracks which put her
and other female employees at great risk.
“I think that men who are there believe that they live without laws,”
said Kelly. “The last thing she should have expected was for her own
people to turn on her.”
Halliburton, which has since divested itself of KBR, says it “is
improperly named” in the suit. In a statement, KBR said it was “instructed to cease” its own
investigation by U.S.
government authorities “because they were assuming sole responsibility for
the criminal investigations.”
“The safety and security of all employees remains KBR’s top
priority,” it said in a statement. “Our commitment in this regard is
unwavering.”
Since the attacks, Jones has started a nonprofit foundation called the Jamie Leigh Foundation, which is
dedicated to helping victims who were raped or sexually assaulted overseas
while working for government contractors or other corporations.
“I want other women to know that it’s not their fault,” said
Jones. “They can go against corporations that have treated them this
way.” Jones said that any proceeds from the civil suit will go to her
foundation.
“There needs to be a voice out there that really pushed for
change,” she said. “I’d like to be that voice.”
© COPYRIGHT ABC, 2007
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR