SAN FRANCISCO _ Two U.S. psychologists who helped design an overseas CIA interrogation program failed to persuade a judge to derail a trial over claims they're responsible for the alleged torture of three terrorism suspects.
But the federal judge in Spokane, Wash., refused Friday to give the former detainees an early victory on their request that he find the liability of the contractor-psychologists is already proven. Instead, all claims will be heard by a jury at a trial set for September. The judge urged both sides to try to reach a settlement.
The case is over alleged abuses in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks at secret "black-site" facilities that operated during the administration of President George W. Bush. The lawsuit followed the 2014 release of a congressional report on Central Intelligence Agency interrogation techniques that for the first time published the names of the three prisoners and described what they had been through.
