Attorney urges jury to find Chevron responsible for killings at oil platform

Dan Stormer, giving his closing argument in the case, said the San Ramon-based oil company paid members of the Nigerian military and brought them by helicopter to the oil platform where they began shooting unarmed villagers peacefully protesting Chevron's destruction of the Niger Delta environment.

"We know that the military was transported, directed, paid, housed and supervised [by Chevron] in its invasion of that platform," Stormer told the nine-member jury. "They sent in people who were notoriously vicious."

Chevron attorney Bob Mittelsteadt responded that the company regretted the deaths and injuries but argued that Chevron was not responsible for the actions of soldiers and police who were responding to a security threat.

He said the protesters were invaders who were holding more than 100 workers hostage at the offshore facility and demanding jobs and money. He characterized the arrival of the military as a "rescue mission."

"This was not a peaceful protest," Mittelsteadt told the jury. "It was an illegal invasion by a group that put the workers' lives at risk and their own lives at risk."

The villagers brought the lawsuit under the Alien Tort Claims Act, which allows foreigners to sue American companies in the United States for their actions in foreign countries.

The case arises from an incident 10 years ago at Chevron's Parabe oil platform nine miles off the Nigerian coast.

Members of the Ilaje ethnic group were upset by Chevron's actions in the Niger Delta, including oil spills and dredging that killed fish, contaminated the soil and fouled drinking water. They also were angered by a lack of jobs or other compensation and Chevron's apparent unwillingness to talk to them.

In May 1998, more than 100 Ilaje villagers boated out to the oil platform and occupied an adjoining barge. In an initial attempt to end the protest, a Chevron representative began negotiating with tribal elders onshore.

But from that point on, witnesses and experts called by the two sides offered sharply contrasting accounts of how events unfolded.