Donald Vance

Donald Vance (born c. 1976) is an American Navy veteran who was held in detention at Camp Cropper, the United States military's maximum-security detention site in Baghdad for 97 days beginning in April 2006.

Background Vance was a 29-year-old Navy veteran from Chicago when he went to Iraq as a security contractor.

Incarceration Vance claims he was subject to interrogations, inhumane treatment and sleep deprivation techniques during his time at Camp Cropper.

Legal case On December 18, 2006, Vance filed suit against the US government and the former US Secretary of Defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld, on grounds that he was tortured and his rights of habeas corpus were violated. In its opinion, the Court asked, "On what conceivable basis could a U.S. public official possibly conclude that it was constitutional to torture U.S. citizens?" With reference to the defendants' arguments for immunity, the Court wrote that "The [defense] theory would immunize every enlisted soldier in the war zone and every official in between … for deliberate torture and even coldblooded murder of civilian U.S. citizens." In October 2011, however, the 7th Circuit agreed to rehear the case en banc, vacating the prior opinion. The 7th Circuit Court dismissed the case in November 2012.