NEW YORK (AFP) — A group of Colombian families filed a lawsuit against banana giant Chiquita in New York Wednesday, accusing the company of paying off militant groups that allegedly tortured and killed their relatives.
The lawsuit, the latest of several legal challenges filed against the company for its involvement with the feared paramilitary groups, seeks 7.8 billion dollars in damages.
"This lawsuit is about compensating the victims and the families for these atrocities," said Jonathan Reiter, the lawyer representing the 393 individuals, family members and alleged victims, unveiling the lawsuit in New York.
The mammoth lawsuit, if equally divided, would equal about 20 million dollars per plaintiff.
The complaint says the victims in the suit were tortured and killed by one of Colombia's most notorious paramilitary groups, the United Self-Defense Committees of Colombia, in the pay of Chiquita.
The suit seeks "damages for terrorism, war crimes, crimes against humanity extrajudicial killing, torture and wrongful death."
Another group filed a similar lawsuit against the banana giant in July accusing Chiquita of funding and arming known terrorist organizations in order to maintain control of Colombia's banana growing regions from the mid 1990s.
The class action lawsuit, filed in New Jersey, seeks unspecified damages.
In April, Chiquita agreed to pay a 25-million-dollar fine after pleading guilty to helping to finance the United Self-Defense Committees of Colombia.
In June, relatives of 173 people killed in the country's banana-growing region launched another lawsuit against Chiquita for its involvement with banned paramilitary groups.
Such armed groups originally were organized as private armies for drug traffickers in the 1980s, ostensibly to protect landholders from leftist guerrillas who were extorting "war taxes."
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
