http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-germany-us-radar-vic
tims1009oct08,0,6890601.story
Newsday.com
German Soldiers Sue U.S. Radar Firms
By STEPHEN GRAHAM
Associated Press Writer
October 8, 2002, 10:52 PM EDT
BERLIN -- German soldiers suffering from cancer that they blame on
radiation from radar equipment filed a lawsuit Tuesday in a
U.S. court seeking damages from U.S.-based manufacturers, their lawyers
said.
The class-action suit was filed before the state court in El Paso,
Texas, on behalf of more than 450 soldiers from the German
Bundeswehr and other NATO armies, said Reiner Geulen, a Berlin-based
attorney.
German soldiers and their families have long sought damages for
illnesses such as leukemia and testicular cancer that they believe
is the result of poor protection against radiation from radar equipment.
Geulen, who says he represents a total of 822 former soldiers, filed a
lawsuit in March against the German Defense Ministry after
government compensation failed to materialize. Some 185 of his clients
have died of their ailments, Geulen said.
In the U.S. suit, lawyers for soldiers who worked on U.S.-made radar
equipment between 1958 and 1994 and their relatives are
seeking damages from the manufacturers, who include Raytheon, General
Electric Co., Lucent Technologies, Honeywell
International and ITT Industries.
The companies are accused of "failing to adequately shield" transmitter
tubes that emitted "dangerous amounts of X-ray radiation,"
according to the suit, which alleges that they failed to warn users of
the subsequent health risks or instruct them to take wear
protective clothing or limit periods of exposure.
Calls seeking comment at the offices of Fairfield, Conn.-based General
Electric were not immediately returned.
Raytheon spokesman David Polk declined to comment, saying company
officials hadn't yet seen the lawsuit.
Many military technicians were sent to El Paso for training on how to
operate and maintain the equipment, and many of the
defendant firms have subsidiaries there, Geulen said in a statement.
The lawyer didn't say how much his plaintiffs were seeking, but said the
lower limit of awards in U.S. courts lies between $1
million and $2 million per person. A verdict is likely at the end of
next year, he said.
In the suits filed in March in two German courts, six claimants are
seeking damages of at least $59,000 each.
The German government admitted last summer a link between health
problems and lax safety for personnel who worked with the
equipment during the Cold War, after an official report said as many as
1,000 had since fallen ill.
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