Chiquita found liable by U.S. jury for killings by Colombian terrorists

Chiquita Brands was ordered Monday by a Florida jury to pay $38.3 million to the families of eight people killed by a right-wing paramilitary group in Colombia, which the banana grower had funded for years during that country's violent civil war.

Chiquita had previously acknowledged funding the paramilitary group, pleading guilty in 2007 after the U.S. Department of Justice charged the company with providing payments to what the agency labeled a "terrorist organization." The group, the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, or AUC, received payments from Chiquita from about 1997 through 2004, which the company had described as "security payments" during the country's internal conflict.