Cicippio v. Islamic Republic of Iran

• Citation: 18 F.Supp.2d 62
• Decision Date: 27 August 1998
• Docket Number: Civil Action No. 96-1805(TPJ).
• Parties: Joseph J. CICIPPIO, et al., Plaintiffs, v. ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

18 F.Supp.2d 62

Joseph J. CICIPPIO, et al., Plaintiffs, v. ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN, Defendant.

Civil Action No. 96-1805(TPJ).

United States District Court, District of Columbia.

August 27, 1998.

Barbara Anne Barnes, James J. Oliver, Carla E. Connor, Murphy & Oliver, Norristown, PA, for Plaintiffs.

DECISION AND ORDER

JACKSON, District Judge.

Three male U.S. citizens, joined by the spouses of two of them, bring this action for damages for tortious injuries done to them in the course of their kidnapping, imprisonment and torture by agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran ("Iran") between the years 1985 and 1991 in Beirut, Lebanon. Jurisdiction is predicated upon 28 U.S.C. §§ 1330(a) and 1605(a)(7).

Iran was served with process on April 28, 1997 (see infra, n. 4), but did not respond to the complaint, and default was entered November 13, 1997. The case was therefore tried ex parte to this Court, sitting without a jury, on July 20-21, 1998. Upon the evidence adduced at trial, from which the facts set forth below are found pursuant to Fed. R.Civ.P. 52(a), the Court concludes that judgments shall be given for plaintiffs.

I.

In the mid-1980's all five plaintiffs were civilians residing in Beirut, Lebanon. David Jacobsen, 54 years of age in 1985 and unmarried, was the chief executive officer of the American University of Beirut Medical Center.¹ In 1986, Joseph Cicippio, 56 years old, was comptroller of the American University of Beirut and its hospital, and had recently married plaintiff Elham Cicippio, then a Lebanese citizen. Frank Reed, aged 51 in 1986, owned and operated two private schools in Beirut with a Lebanese partner. Fifi Dalati-Reed, his wife, was a teacher. None had any connection whatsoever with the U.S. government.

Beginning in May of 1985, each man was independently assaulted, subdued, and abducted by several armed male assailants while on public thoroughfares in the vicinity of their homes or offices. Each was held prisoner separately, at various locations in Beirut or its environs, under similar abject conditions. Their captors have been identified as members of Hizballah, a politico-paramilitary organization sponsored, financed, and controlled by Iran. Hizballah's mission was to exploit the disorder in Lebanon following the Israeli military incursion of 1982 and to diminish American influence in the region. Hizballah was and is a terrorist organization, and Iran is recognized officially as a state sponsor of acts of terrorism, including kidnapping and hostage-taking.²

Jacobsen was held in captivity for 532 days, nearly a year and a half. Reed was held for 1330 days, over three and a half years. Cicippio remained a prisoner the longest, 1908 days, or five years and three months.

At trial, each of the three former hostages testified in detail about his ordeal and the inhumane treatment he received. See Tr. July 20, 1998 (hereinafter "July 20 Tr.") at 22-68 (Jacobsen); July 20 Tr. at 93-125 (Reed); Tr. July 21, 1998 (hereinafter "July 21 Tr.") at 11-46 (Cicippio). The following summaries do not do full justice to their accounts.

II. David Jacobsen

Shortly before 8:00 a.m. on May 28, 1985, Jacobsen was walking with a companion between the American University of Beirut campus and the Medical Center. As they crossed an intersection, a van pulled beside them, and two or three men grabbed Jacobsen from behind while another man with a gun fought with the companion. The assailants forced Jacobsen into the van, pistol-whipped, bound and gagged him, and pushed him into a hidden compartment under the floor of the back of the van.

Jacobsen was held captive with several others, in darkness or blindfolded, for 18 months. During that entire time, he says, he was able to see the sunlight twice and the moon once. His captors kept Jacobsen chained by his ankles or wrists, wearing nothing but undershorts and at-shirt. Meals consisted of pita bread and a bit of dry cheese for breakfast, a bowl of rice with a dehydrated soup sauce for lunch, and a piece of bread for dinner. Sometimes his guards would spit into his food before serving him.³

In addition to the physical suffering caused by the conditions of confinement, Jacobsen and his fellow prisoners were subjected to regular beatings on all parts of their bodies. Jacobsen was frequently confronted with the prospect of imminent death; at any time a guard might put a gun to his head and threaten to kill him. His captors interrogated him incessantly, accusing him of working for the C.I.A. (which he did not), in the course of which he would be intermittently beaten as well. Although blindfolded, he could overhear other hostages suffering as he was, including the moments of their deaths, constantly fearing that he might be next. He heard the death throes of fellow hostage William Buckley, and listened as well as a French hostage died of his infirmities and another was executed by gunshot.

As with all the former hostages, the looming uncertainty of the future was a constant demoralizing force for Jacobsen: unlike sentenced criminals, he observed, a hostage is aware only of how long he has been held; he knows nothing as to when, if ever, he will be released. On four occasions Jacobsen's captors intimated that they would release him shortly, only to continue his imprisonment without explanation.

On November 2, 1986, Jacobsen was finally released. Since his release, Jacobsen has been under continuous treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from his captivity. See Pls.' Ex. 18 (Report of Dr. Calvin Frederick of July 16, 1998).

Frank Reed

Frank Reed was abducted in Beirut while on his way to meet his wife for lunch on September 9, 1986. He was held at gun-point, then thrown into the back of a car and taken to a hideout where he was beaten for several days as a suspected C.I.A. agent. Reed, too, was subjected daily to torture and threats of death. He was kept in solitary confinement for two years, blindfolded and chained to the wall or floor. He contracted persistent eye infections from the blindfold, and scars remain on his wrist to this day from the manacles. For part of his captivity, Reed was held in a six foot-by-six foot room with only rodents for company. During the entire 44 months of his captivity, Reed says, he was never permitted to stand erect; he was constantly shackled in a stooped position.

Because Reed attempted to escape on two occasions, his captors considered him a hard case and punished him accordingly. They tightened his chains to deter future escape attempts. After one escape attempt, electric shocks were administered to his hands and he was forced to kneel on spikes. His captors battered his feet with iron bars. To this day, Reed says, he has no sensation in his feet. He can stand or walk only for short periods. Following his second escape attempt, his guards struck him in the kidneys with a rifle, and for days afterwards his urine was bloody. One guard struck him multiple times on each side of his head with a hand grenade, permanently damaging his hearing. His captors broke Reed's jaw and nose, turned him upside down and beat the soles of his feet with a belt. On another occasion he was kicked in the ribs so forcefully that the bones pierced his skin. One of Reed's captors placed boiling tea kettles on his shoulders, the scars of which remain today.

Reed calculates he was moved about the city 18 times in the course of his captivity, transported in a narrow secret compartment in the bed of a truck, with his arms taped to his side and his mouth gagged. When he was moved, Reed never knew where his captors were taking him or whether he was about to be executed. His greatest fear throughout his captivity was that he would die in solitude, with none of his loved ones aware of his fate.

Reed was released on April 30, 1990. He was taken to Wiesbaden Hospital in Germany and then returned to the United States, where he remained hospitalized at Andrews Air Force Base for 80 days. His doctors discovered that Reed suffered from arsenic poisoning. See Pls.' Exs. 8B, 8E. Apparently his captors had laced his food with arsenic for a long period of time, including a large dose before he was released. Since his release, Reed has been in the hospital eleven times and has been treated for severe depression six times. Mrs. Reed testified that as a result of his captivity, her husband is still being medicated for post-traumatic stress disorder and that he has been impotent ever since. See July 20 Tr. at 138-39, 141-42.

Joseph Cicippio

Early in the morning of September 12, 1986, while leaving his faculty apartment on the lower campus of the university, Cicippio was approached by a group of three or four young men who asked who he was, and then proceeded to attack him. The assailants pistol-whipped him about the head until he lost consciousness, and then took him to a dwelling he believes to have been in the vicinity of the airport. He was stripped, then given only a robe to wear, and left bleeding, dizzy, and in severe pain.

Cicippio was held imprisoned for the next 1,908 days. He was subjected to terrifying interrogation. Convinced that Cicippio worked for the C.I.A. because he remained in Lebanon after most other Americans had left, his captors sought to force a confession from him by a grisly game of Russian roulette: a revolver was placed to his head with a single bullet in the cylinder. Each denial of a C.I.A. connection produced a pull of the trigger. He was also threatened with castration.

Cicippio, too, was randomly beaten throughout his captivity and forced to watch fellow captives being beaten. "You never knew when or where it would happen over the years," he testified. "It could happen almost at any hour, day and night." July 21 Tr. at 42. He lived in a constant state of fear.

The terrorists kept Cicippio completely isolated from the outside world. He was confined in rodent- and scorpion-infested cells, and for virtually his...