A federal jury Monday cleared Chevron Corp. of any responsibility in the shooting of Nigerian villagers by military forces during a protest at an offshore oil platform... Survivors of the 1998 incident had argued that the oil company should be held accountable because it paid the police and soldiers and transported them by helicopter to the oil platform, where they shot and killed two unarmed protesters and wounded two others... Chevron...countered that the villagers were holding workers hostage at the platform and that the company acted responsibly by calling in local authorities to protect them... Bert Voorhees, an attorney for the Nigerian villagers, said the plaintiffs' team of attorneys would appeal... Naomi Roht-Arriaza, a professor at UC Hastings' College of the Law who observed part of the trial, said the verdict appears to have turned on the facts in the case, not on whether the Alien Torts Statute should apply. [also refers to Unocal lawsuit]