US District Judge Leonie Brinkema on Wednesday allowed a lawsuit brought by three former inmates of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq against military contractor CACI Premier Technology to proceed.

The case, originally filed in 2008 by the Center for Constitutional Rights, alleges that military police (MPs) tortured the prisoners at the direction of civilian contractors like CACI. The suit claims that CACI would order MPs to torture prisoners as a way to soften them up for questioning by civilian contractors. The case has been dismissed multiple times by the district court, but has been revived by the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit each time. The district judge said that she interprets the Fourth Circuit’s remand to require her to bring the case to trial and said to the parties, “You should expect, if you don’t settle this case, it’ll go to trial”.

This latest ruling is a result of CACI’s motion to dismiss based on the State Secrets Privilege. CACI stated that because the military refuses to declassify the names of the troops and contractors, CACI could not mount a defense. The district judge was sympathetic and granted a motion to dismiss against a plaintiff whose time at Abu Ghraib did not overlap with CACI’s, but refused to dismiss on the State Secrets Privilege. CACI has said that they believe it will be hard to appear before a jury due to the negative public reaction to torture particularly at Abu Ghraib prison where photos of prisoner treatment were released in 2008.