CNN
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A Florida jury on Monday discovered banana firm Chiquita Manufacturers Worldwide accountable for financing the Colombian paramilitary group Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC).
The jury within the civil case, in federal court docket within the Southern District of Florida, discovered that “Chiquita knowingly supplied substantial help to the AUC to a level ample to create a foreseeable threat of hurt to others.”
Chiquita, one of many world’s largest banana producers, has been ordered to pay a complete of $38.3 million to the households of eight victims of the AUC, which was a far-right paramilitary group that was designated a terrorist group by the US. The group disbanded in 2006, in line with Stanford College’s Mapping Militants Venture.
In an amended Florida lawsuit, which was filed in 2008, the plaintiffs alleged funds from Chiquita to the AUC propped up the paramilitary group’s violence in Colombia and that the corporate ought to be held accountable for the group’s murders.
In an announcement to CNN, Chiquita mentioned it deliberate to enchantment to jury’s verdict.
“The scenario in Colombia was tragic for therefore many, together with these straight affected by the violence there, and our ideas stay with them and their households. Nevertheless, that doesn’t change our perception that there isn’t any authorized foundation for these claims,” the corporate’s assertion mentioned. “Whereas we’re disillusioned by the choice, we stay assured that our authorized place will in the end prevail.”
Searcy Regulation, a regulation agency representing AUC victims and their households, applauded Tuesday’s resolution in a press launch.
“The decision sends a strong message: firms might be held accountable when enterprise selections prioritize income over human lives,” Searcy Regulation mentioned.
The lives of the victims had been devastated on account of violence by AUC, Searcy Regulation mentioned. CNN has reached out to the victims’ households.
In 2007, Chiquita pleaded responsible to creating over 100 funds to the AUC totaling over $1.7 million regardless of the group being designated a terrorist group. Chiquita recorded the AUC funds as “safety companies,” although the corporate by no means acquired any precise companies from these funds, according to a US Justice Division press launch from the time. The corporate agreed to pay the US authorities a $25 million advantageous, the US mentioned in its launch.
An unnamed firm government had informed the Justice Division that the funds had been made underneath the specter of violence, in line with the discharge. Nevertheless, the Florida jury dominated that Chiquita didn’t “act as an inexpensive businessperson would have acted underneath the circumstances.”
“Chiquita’s declare that it was compelled to help the terrorists as a result of it was itself the sufferer of extortion was a protection expressly rejected by the jury,” Searcy Regulation mentioned.
Searcy Regulation lawyer Victoria Mesa-Estrada mentioned the decision is a wake-up name for companies to “re-evaluate their operations and guarantee they don’t seem to be even not directly supporting violence or human rights abuses.”
In a social media publish, Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, reacted to the American jury’s Tuesday resolution and requested why the identical ruling was not made in his dwelling nation.
“Why might US justice decide in judicial fact that Chiquita Manufacturers financed paramilitarism in Urabá? Why couldn’t Colombian justice?” he mentioned in a post on X translated from Spanish.
This story has been up to date with further particulars.