In 2004, the nation and the world were shocked by disturbing photos that seemingly revealed the alleged torture and severe mistreatment of Iraqi detainees by U.S. military members and private contractors at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Those allegations led to a lawsuit filed a few years later by three Iraqi detainees that finally reached a trial last month after incessant delays but ended with a deadlocked jury and the judge declaring a mistrial, the Associated Press reported.

A retrial could eventually be scheduled, however, if the three Iraqi detainees who survived that alleged abuse at Abu Ghraib and the attorneys who represented them in U.S. federal court decide to press the matter again.

Deadlocked jury results in mistrial

The AP reported that the civil trial in a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, lasted only a few days while the jury deliberations that followed lasted eight days, and only ended after the jurors informed the judge that they were deadlocked on a verdict, which prompted the judge to declare a mistrial.

At issue were allegations that interrogators at Abu Ghraib, private contractors provided by a Virginia-based company known as CACI, had instructed the military police guards at the Iraqi prison to torture, mistreat, and "soften up" the detainees ahead of interrogations.

The company denied that it was culpable for the alleged abuse under an obscure legal principle called the "borrowed servants" doctrine, which essentially asserted that the CACI employees ultimately worked under contract for the U.S. Army, which bore responsibility for anything that occurred at the prison it operated in Iraq.

That doctrine, among other pieces of evidence and information provided to the jury, reportedly caused some confusion among the jurors, and though an unspecified majority of the jurors reportedly sided with the Iraqi plaintiffs, a few jurors remained unconvinced and prevented a required unanimous verdict.

Investigations revealed "conspiracy," contractors deemed "complicit" in abuse of detainees

Al Jazeera reported that the three former Iraqi detainees -- Salah Hasan al-Ejaili, Suhail Al Shimari, and Asa’ad al-Zuba’e -- testified during the trial, a first for U.S. courts in terms of alleged torture victims, as did two retired U.S. Army generals who investigated the Abu Ghraib allegations.

Those generals both independently concluded that the civilian CACI contractors were complicit in a conspiracy with the Army MP guards to abuse and torture the detainees before they were interrogated. Notably, 11 of those MPs faced court martials and nine were sentenced to prison for their abusive acts toward the prisoners they guarded.

Adding insult to injury in the case was the fact that a Red Cross International investigation of the Abu Ghraib prison determined that the overwhelming majority of the detainees held there, including the three plaintiffs in the lawsuit, were innocent civilians with no ties to any of the armed insurgency groups that were fighting against the U.S. occupation forces in Iraq at that time.

Lawyer for plaintiffs reveals intention to retry the case following mistrial declaration

Following the mistrial declaration, leftist media outlet Democracy Now! interviewed Baher Azmy, the lead attorney and legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represented the three Iraqi plaintiffs.

Azmy spoke at length about the 15 years of delay tactics by CACI and the company's roughly two dozen attempts to dismiss the case and also detailed the apparent confusion of the jury about the "borrowed servants" doctrine and how it was applied in this particular case.

He also lamented how that doctrine serves to create a sort of "no man's land" and "accountability gap" that can -- and likely has been -- exploited by both the U.S. government and private contractors to dodge responsibility for illegal behaviors

Amzy ultimately expressed how "deeply disappointed" the Iraqi plaintiffs were at the lack of a unanimous verdict on their behalf but took heart that a mistrial was declared, which means "that we are allowed to retry the case -- and have every intention of doing so."