A federal appeals court in Virginia has dismissed two lawsuits by former Iraqi detainees who claimed they were tortured at the Abu Ghraib prison.

A divided three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed Wednesday with two contractors who claimed immunity because they were doing the government's work in providing interrogators and translators to the U.S.-run prison near Baghdad.

In one of the cases, four Iraqis claimed they were abused by interrogators employed by CACI International Inc. The other lawsuit was filed by 72 Iraqis against L-3 Services, which provided translators at Abu Ghraib and other prisons.

The appeals court's ruling reversed decisions by federal judges in Alexandria, Va., and Greenbelt, Md., who had rejected the contractors' immunity claims.