WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., April 30 (UPI) -- A U.S. judicial panel has ordered that claims that U.S. fruit company Chiquita Brands played a role in scores of killings in Colombia be heard in a U.S. court.
U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra in West Palm Beach, Fla., will handle the lawsuits that alleged Chiquita regularly paid off a rightist terrorist group that killed nearly 200 Colombians in the 1990s and early 2000s.