A lawsuit filed in the US capital of Washington, DC this week alleges that bribes it says were paid by leading drugmakers including Pfizer, Roche, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca to secure healthcare contracts in Iraq ultimately supported terrorism.

The suit was filed under the US Anti-Terrorism Act, and according to reports is supported by more than 100 US veterans or their family members. The plaintiffs charge that terrorists “openly controlled” the Iraqi ministry in charge of importing medical goods and that the companies “obtained lucrative contracts from that ministry by making corrupt payments to the terrorists who ran it."

Further, the military vets contend that the drugmakers "knew or recklessly disregarded” that their corrupt transactions helped finance attacks on Americans by the terrorist group Jaysh al-Mahdi (also known as JAM or the Mahdi Army). 

A Pfizer spokesperson told a pharma trade journal that the company "categorically denies any wrongdoing." Roche said it does not comment on ongoing lawsuits, while an AstraZeneca representative said the company has not been served with the lawsuit but has “a zero-tolerance policy for bribery and corruption."

Over the past decade, the journal said a number of drugmakers have settled allegations of bribery and kickbacks overseas, in Iraq and elsewhere, some of them related to the UN Oil for Food program.  In 2011, it said, Johnson & Johnson agreed to pay $70 million to settle claims that it bribed officials in Greece, Poland and Romania and also paid kickbacks to the former Iraqi government under the UN program.

The suit follows what is being presented as an “extensive investigation” by the Washington law firms of Sparacino & Andreson and Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel & Frederick. The allegations are said to be based on information from 12 confidential witnesses, private and public reports, contracts, emails as well as documents published by WikiLeaks.

“While Americans worked to rebuild Iraq, many were attacked by a terrorist group that we allege has been funded in part by the defendants' corrupt sales practices," Kellogg Hansen said in a statement. "This lawsuit alleges that the defendants have aided and abetted terrorism in Iraq by paying bribes to the terrorists who ran the Iraqi Ministry of Health.”