From [HERE] A 2017 lawsuit alleging five pharmaceutical companies helped finance terror attacks against U.S. service members and other Americans in Iraq during the “War on Terror” was unanimously reinstated and remanded by a three-judge panel of the D.C. Court of Appeals.

The lawsuit against the five companies in question — Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Roche and GE Healthcare — was dismissed in July 2020 by a federal district court in Washington, D.C. before being reinstated last week.

The lawsuit claims the five companies regularly paid bribes, including free drugs and medical devices, to officials in Iraq’s Ministry of Health between 2005 and 2011, in their efforts to secure drug contracts.

In turn, the suit alleges, these companies’ contracts with the Iraqi health ministry helped “fund terrorism” perpetrated by a Shiite militia that killed Americans during that period.

The militia in question, Jaysh al-Mahdi, or the “Mahdi Army,” maintained control of the health ministry at that time.

The amended lawsuit was filed on behalf of 395 Americans who were killed or injured in Iraq during the six-year period.

The plaintiffs seek damages under the federal Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), which states plaintiffs must demonstrate the terror attacks were conducted by an organization formally designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. government.

While the Mahdi Army has not been formally classified as a terrorist group, the lawsuit alleges the army’s attacks carried out in Iraq were “planned and organized” by Hezbollah, which the U.S. in 1997 labeled a terror group.

The initial lawsuit also prompted an investigation of the pharmaceutical companies by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), in 2018.

An alleged web of corruption and kickbacks

The allegations made in the lawsuit are based on information provided by 12 confidential witnesses, public and private reports, contracts, email communications and documents published by WikiLeaks.

Included in the lawsuit are 27 pages of itemized deaths and injuries sustained by U.S. service members in attacks by the Mahdi Army between 2005 and 2009, and claims of pain and suffering submitted by their family members and relatives.

One of the main planks of the lawsuit pertains to bribes and kickbacks the five companies named in the suit are alleged to have provided to the terrorists who controlled the Iraqi health ministry between 2005 and 2011.

The lawsuit alleges the five companies obtained contracts with the ministry through the illicit payments, which were then used to “aid and abet” terror attacks against Americans.

The central argument put forth in the original lawsuit is that the companies must have been aware that Iraq’s health ministry operated as a de facto terrorist organization, and this knowledge should have resulted in an insistence, on the part of the five companies, that any contracts with the ministry be structured to reflect this knowledge and to guard against potential corruption and misuse of funds.

This point is crucial, as it is illegal under U.S. law to knowingly fund terror groups.

In the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the procurement budget for the Iraqi health ministry skyrocketed, from $16 million in 2003 to approximately $1 billion in 2004, due to U.S. financial assistance.

It was in 2004, according to the lawsuit, that the Mahdi Army took control of the Iraqi health ministry, at a time when various political factions in the country took over government ministries as the U.S. devolved power back to the Iraqis.

Having taken over the ministry, the Mahdi Army allegedly used it as a vehicle for financing terrorist acts, using local agents to deliver cash kickbacks to terrorists on the ground and selling medical supplies “off the books” on the black market, to further fund terror operations. [MORE]