A judge ruled on Friday that an alleged Halliburton/KBR rape case can go to court, rather than closed arbitration. Jamie Leigh Jones, a former employee of Halliburton and its then-subsidiary KBR, filed a lawsuit against her former employers in May 2007, stating that she was drugged and gang-raped by a group of her co-workers in the KBR camp in Iraq’s Green Zone in 2005.
No charges had been filed in the case as a result of a loophole in US law that effectively leaves contractors working in Iraq out of jurisdiction for US courts. Instead, conflicts between contractor employers and employees went to private arbitration. The issue received national attention after Jones went public, testifying at two Congressional hearings.
“We are extremely excited we can now go forward and present the case in the public arena and make the public aware of what been going on overseas in Iraq. Halliburton has ratified gross sexual conduct by their failure to act,” said Stephanie Morris, an attorney for Jones.
