Chiquita funded Colombian terrorists for years. A jury now says the firm is liable for killings.

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. 

The decision marks the first time an American jury has held a large U.S. corporation liable for a major human rights violation in another country, according to EarthRights International, a human rights firm that represented one family in the case. Chiquita still faces thousands of other claims from victims of the AUC, and Monday's decision could pave the way for more cases to come to trial or for a "global settlement," said Marco Simons, EarthRights general counsel, in a press conference to discuss the jury's decision.