World Bulletin / News Desk

A federal judge on Friday for the first time ever that a civil lawsuit brought by victims of the CIA torture program can move forward.

Psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, who designed the CIA's torture programme, are trying to get a judge to throw out the lawsuit filed on behalf of some of the men who were tortured.

However senior federal judge Justin L Quackenbush said he could not dismiss the case. “I cannot summarily dismiss the complaint plaintiffs have filed,” Quackenbush said before the two-hour hearing had even ended. “It’s thorough to say the least. On its face, the complaint alleges not only aiding and abetting but participation and complicity in the administration of this enhanced interrogation program.”

More than 100 men have sad that they were subjected to waterboarding and beatings during CIA interrogations in Afghanistan.

According to the 2014 US Senate Intelligence Committee report on the torture programme, Mitchell and Jessen, who had no experience in interrogations, were paid $81m to teach the CIA how to break the detainees during questioning.

The Senate report called the programme "brutal" "physically harmful" and "not effective".

Source: Al Jazeera