A three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit dismissed the claims [JURIST report] against CACI International Inc. and L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. [opinions, PDF] in September 2011, holding that federal law protecting civilian contractors acting under the control of the US military in a combat situation preempted the plaintiffs' tort claims based in state law. US military personnel have also been accused of torturing detainees at Abu Ghraib prison. Army Spc. Charles Graner [JURIST news archive], the convicted ringleader of abuses committed at the prison, was released [JURIST report] last August for good behavior after serving more than six-and-a-half years of his 10-year sentence. Graner was convicted [JURIST report] in 2005 of conspiracy, assault, maltreating prisoners, dereliction of duty and committing indecent acts and received the longest sentence of the six others involved in the abuses. In June, the DOJ initiated a grand jury investigation [JURIST report] into the torture and death of a detainee at Abu Ghraib. Manadel Al-Jamadi was captured [JURIST report] by US Navy SEALs in 2003 and held in Abu Ghraib as a "ghost detainee," or unregistered prisoner, for his suspected involvement in the bombing of a Red Cross center in Baghdad that killed 12 people. The US military has never revealed the exact circumstances of his death, which was ruled a homicide [JURIST report]. Reports show he died while suspended by his wrists, which were handcuffed behind his back.