Seattle, January 31:

A federal jury today ruled that Seattle authorities violated the civil rights of around 200 protestors who were detained during the 1999 World Trade Organisation (WTO) riots.

Lawyers leading the class-action lawsuit said the demonstrators had been protesting peacefully at Seattle’s downtown Westlake Park when they were rounded up in mass arrests as violence rocked the city.

Seattle suffered millions of dollars in damage after violence involving anti-globalisation protestors and anarchists erupted during the WTO conference in the city.

Defence attorney Mike Withey of Trial Lawyers for Public Justice said his clients were peacefully protesting on December 1 when they were arrested. He said they had been singing ‘America the Beautiful,’ when ‘police surrounded them, corralled them, arrested them and then took them off to Sand Point Naval Yard,’ where they were confined for between two to four days.

Withey said today’s jury verdict was a victory for constitutional rights in the US and in Seattle. He said it would prevent other cities from making ‘mass arrests’ of peaceful, non-violent protesters without facing potential civil liability in the courts. “The next step will be a damages trial to determine how much it will cost the city of Seattle, which has already paid out more than $800,000 in lawsuits and settlements.

This is expected to be the last lawsuit stemming from the WTO protests that led to three days of rioting in the streets and a shutdown of the city as hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets.