by Mike Scarcella

Washington: United States Supreme Court The challenge on Monday was prompted by 21 pharmaceutical and medical device companies, led by AstraZeneca to one trial He has been accused of helping to raise funds illegally Terror Hundreds of people were killed or injured American Soldiers and in civilians Iraq,

The judges threw out a lower court’s decision to revive a lawsuit filed by military personnel and civilians who said they were harmed in the Iraq war between 2005 and 2011. The judges asked the lower court to reconsider the case.

Hundreds of US military personnel and civilians and their families have sued the defendant companies, which are part of five corporate houses – AstraZeneca, Pfizer, GE Healthcare USA, Johnson & Johnson, and F. Hoffmann-La Roche.

The plaintiffs accused major U.S. and European drug and equipment manufacturers of making corrupt payments to the Hezbollah-sponsored militia group Jaish al-Mahdi to obtain medical supply contracts from Iraq’s Ministry of Health. The plaintiffs alleged that the militia group controls the Ministry of Health.

The suit, brought in 2017 in federal court in Washington, seeks unspecified damages under the Antiterrorism Act, a federal law that allows Americans to pursue claims related to “acts of international terrorism.”

A federal trial judge dismissed the suit in 2020, but in 2022 the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned that ruling and allowed the case to proceed.

The companies have denied any wrongdoing and said they are “in no way responsible for the tragic events perpetrated by Iraqi militia groups.”

The companies said in a filing to the justices that the claims in the case should be barred under a Supreme Court ruling expected in 2023 that protects social media platform Twitter (now called X) from liability under the federal Anti-Terrorism Act.

In the Twitter case, the Supreme Court determined that aiding and abetting claims under the Anti-Terrorism Act require a showing that the defendant “knowingly and culpably” participated in a terrorist act in order to help it succeed.

The plaintiffs countered in a filing that those who sued Twitter sought to hold the company liable for “mere inaction” — namely, for its alleged failure to kick a terrorist group off the platform.

The plaintiffs said drug and device manufacturers “knowingly paid bribes to terrorists” were “far more culpable.”

(Reporting by Mike Scarcella; Editing by Will Dunham)