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[21][75] In the memorandum opinion, Judge Urbina ruled the cases against Slough, Liberty, Heard, Ball, and Slatten had been improperly built on testimony given in exchange for immunity;[76] that evidence included statements the guards had been compelled to give to State Department investigators, and as these statements would have been self-incriminating, they could not be used as evidence under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Slough, Liberty and Heard were convicted on multiple charges of voluntary and attempted manslaughter in 2014, while Slatten, who was the first to start shooting, was convicted of first-degree murder. He was driving on flat tires and with a shattered windshield. "The civilians that were fired upon, they didn't have any weapons to fire back at them. The Blackwater guards were firing indiscriminately. U.S. military reports appear to corroborate the Iraqi government's contention that Blackwater was at fault in the incident. Slatten faced a potential sentence of life in prison. [55], On April 1, 2009, the Associated Press reported that forensic tests on bullets were inconclusive. [64], US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates testified before Congress that the Pentagon has sufficient legal authority to control its contractors, but that commanders lack sufficient "means and resources" to exercise adequate oversight. Dozens of witnesses were brought to the United States to testify about what happened. FBI scientists couldn't match bullets from the square to guns carried by the Blackwater guards and FBI investigators found foreign cartridge cases of a kind not used by U.S. or Blackwater personnel. "These four individuals were given sentences ranging from 12 years to life imprisonment, including on charges of first-degree murder," spokesperson Marta Hurtado said in a statement. Raven 23 "returned defensive fire" and withdrew from Nisour Square with one of its BearCat vehicles in tow. The State Department announced an American-Iraqi joint commission to investigate both the shooting and the broader issue of employing private security contractors. By Andrew Emett - August 16, 2019 1269 SOURCE NationofChange [38] Waxman stated that "the controversy over Blackwater is an unfortunate demonstration of the perils of excessive reliance on private security contractors. Contractor Banned by Iraq Over Shootings", "F.B.I. If it is determined that one person was complicit in the wrongdoing, we would support accountability in that. The Blackwater incident cost the American military in the Middle East a lot more, experts interviewed by RT believe. [24] The driver of the Kia was shot once in the head by a Blackwater contractor and was killed. Among the pardons made by President Trump this week, the pardon of four former guards for Blackwater has been regarded by some as particularly galling. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. However, the company was allowed to continue to operate in Iraq until January 2009 when the U.S.Iraq Status of Forces Agreement took effect. Bulk comes from private military companies of the Blackwater/Academi kind. Luckily, before his SUV was attacked, Mohammed, his sister, and their children had time to duck into the car. [14], On October 13, 2007, the FBI reported that it had concluded that at least 14 of the 17 Iraqis who died in the square had been killed without cause. What Is Blackwater? A caption at the bottom of the screen states . "I'm really shocked. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Mohammed had not been shot. Mohammed kept seeing the man on the ground next to him being fired upon as he lay dead. Prosecutors asserted the heavily armed Raven 23 Blackwater convoy launched an unprovoked attack using sniper fire, machine-guns and grenade launchers. It was an honor to represent these victims and their families. Paul Dickinson is a lawyer who represented six Iraqi families in a civil lawsuit against Blackwater and its founder, Erik Prince (who is the brother of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos). More were arriving in the backs of trucks. . In his testimony, Prince noted that, "It seems the ballistics analysis was done to prove the guilt of the Americans, not to just try to identify what happened there." Four Blackwater operatives were found guilty one of murder in a 2007 Baghdad massacre. That may be the overriding damage caused by these pardons. A 20,000-strong mercenary army is being assembled in Poland. The Blackwater mercenaries were among the most flagrant killers in Iraq but hardly unique. Hassan Salman is among the Iraqis who were shot during the ambush. [32] In response to the guards' killing of the Iraqi policeman, other Iraqi police officers began to fire at the Blackwater men, who communicated to the State Department operations center that they were under attack. The massacre took place in 2007, when the four were working as guards for Blackwater, a private military contractor, on an assignment in Baghdad. 3", is named Paul Slough. A former security guard working for US mercenary firm Blackwater has been found guilty of murder for his role in a notorious massacre of unarmed civilians in downtown Baghdad in 2007. His mother also suffered a stroke, he added. Russian-American political scientist Malek Dudakov called the shooting a landmark event and a major international scandal. Machine gunfire would cause his lifeless body to shake in his pool of blood. As he was leaving, his youngest son, who was affectionately given the nickname Alawi, asked to go with his father. [1] Russian forces seize huge Ukrainian nuclear plant, fire extinguisher: https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/top-wrap-1-europes-largest-nuclear-power-plant-fire-after-russian-attack-mayor-2022-03-04/. At the sentencing, the US attorneys office said in a statement: The sheer amount of unnecessary human loss and suffering attributable to the defendants criminal conduct on 16 September 2007 is staggering., After news of the pardon emerged on Tuesday night, Brian Heberlig, a lawyer for one of the four pardoned Blackwater defendants, said: Paul Slough and his colleagues didnt deserve to spend one minute in prison. Likewise, the civil case ran through North Carolina state court, was removed to federal court, and then sent back to state court. Nicky Woolf in New York. The U.S. remains one of the notable holdouts of the 2001 UN treaty known in full as the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries and it is unlikely we will ever join. [19] The three justifiable killings were those of the two passengers in the white Kia sedan and an unidentified Iraqi nearby. Adela Sulimanis a London-based reporter for NBC News Digital. They then set off stun grenades to clear the scene. The massacre resulted in the deaths of 17 unarmed Iraqis and wounded at least 20 others. Despite losing the empire in the nineties, as far as military power is concerned, Russia with its enormous arsenal of conventional as well as nuclear weapons still more or less equals the military power of the United States, as is obvious from the unfolding Ukraine war where all the NATO could do is watch it from distance, and not even attempting to enforce a no-fly zone lest the conflict spirals into a mutually destructive nuclear war. Prosecutors said the Blackwater convoy launched an unprovoked attack using sniper fire, machine guns and grenade launchers. It looks at the rise of private security contractors such as Blackwater in the era of modern warfare. Then one of his sisters children said that Ali was hurt. The men, all military veterans working in Iraq for the private security contractor Blackwater, were convicted of massacring 14 civilians in an unprovoked and unjustified rampage of gunfire and. The logs depicted "a hectic eight minutes in which the guards repeatedly reported incoming gunfire from insurgents and Iraqi police". The kind of reporting we do is essential to democracy, but it is not easy, cheap, or profitable. The shooting ended as suddenly as it started. "The victims' families finally saw some measure of justice when these men were convicted in 2014 and sentenced to prison. FBI investigators who visited the scene in the following days described it as the My Lai massacre of Iraq a reference to the infamous slaughter of civilian villagers by US troops during the Vietnam war in which only one soldier was convicted. But its the much more subtle and insidious tactic of economic warfare for which Russia has no antidote, as the global neocolonial order is being led by the United States and its Western European clients since the signing of the Bretton Woods Accord in 1945 following the Second World War. [23]:32 Shortly after assuming their positions, "Raven 23" began firing on civilians in response to an approaching car, killing fourteen and wounding twenty more. Nicholas Slatten was sentenced to life in prison without parole after being convicted of murder, while Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard were convicted of manslaughter and weapons charges. The pardons have reduced American talk of human rights to mere "slogans," he said, adding, "They prefer animals over humans, and then they talk about human rights, justice and humanity. https://t.co/O88HKyb3wd, Kevin Reed | wsws.org (@KevinReedWSWS) March 4, 2022. The Kia continued to roll forward after the driver was killed, according to an eyewitness, and Raven 23 continued to fire on it, killing the passenger (the driver's mother); eventually, the Kia was struck by a grenade and was incinerated. The ones who were killed on the street were shot running for their lives. The result of the long legal battle is that each man was ensured a fair trial, free of partiality and without unjust favor. [34], In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, Blackwater's rights to conduct work in Iraq were temporarily suspended. Although the Pentagons military contractors have been known to be training and advising several brigades of neo-Nazis backed by Ukraines security forces in the Donbas region since 2014, Erik Prince along with his associates from several other private security firms providing military contractors to the US Department of Defense personally visited Kyiv early last month following the Russian troop build-up and met with security officials of the Zelensky regime, according to informed sources. The risk is now that the U.S., who has a presence worldwide, has exposure for how they might be treated or what people of other countries might think could happen or would happen if war crimes are committed by U.S. citizens abroad. Supporters of the former contractors at Blackwater Worldwide had lobbied for the pardons, arguing that the men had been excessively punished. [54] He served one tour in Iraq before being hired as a Personal Security Specialist in Iraq. The Nisour Square massacre was the FBIs most comprehensive and expensive criminal investigation since 9/11. Shots were fired everywhere. Who would be responsible for the myopic and vindictive policy of providing anti-aircraft munitions to Ukraines irregular militias once Kyiv falls and those MANPADS are found in black markets posing a grave risk to civilian airlines across the globe? No wonder Russia formally issued an ultimatum on Tuesday, March 1, that it would target the hub of covert warfare. [84], The other four went on trial starting on June 17, 2014;[5] ten weeks of testimony and 28 days of jury deliberations resulted in convictions for all four men on October 22, 2014. The other three guards faced decades in prison; the weapons charges carried a minimum 30-year sentence under a law enacted during the 1990s cocaine epidemic. It was as if someone had targeted the area in his SUV where a persons head would have been. Ukraine War Anniversary: UN and China Work for Peace, Devilish Zelensky, Kiev Hid Its Dead Soldiers in the Ravines. Blackwater Mercenaries: NATOs Secret Weapon in Ukraine War, VT RADIO: Alternative Foreign Policy Talk, Khazarian Mafia at War: The Jewish Oligarch Who Planned the Terror, Russias Future Predicted by Well-Known Christian Saints, Most Front-Line Ukrainian Soldiers Killed Within 4 Hours, How Russia managed to survive Western sanctions, How War Began The Genesis of NATOs Coup in Ukraine , From Global Warming Denial to Holocaust Denial, On this day in 1940, Woody Guthrie writes This Land Is, Former U.S. President Carter to Hospice, Will Pariah Trump Attend State, Dr. Fauci Admits COVID Shots Didnt Have A Chance Of Controlling. [63], A U.S. judge's decision to dismiss all charges against Blackwater on January 1, 2010, sparked outrage in the Arab world. This evidentiary use of tainted information constitutes yet another Kastigar violation. [16] The FBI investigation found that, of the 17 Iraqis killed by the guards, at least 14 were shot without cause. Almost everyone who was killed or injured was shot in cars, taxis, or buses. Says Guards Killed 14 Iraqis Without Cause", "Blackwater guards lose bid to appeal charges in Iraqi civilian shooting case", "U.S. troops in Iraq will need immunity: U.S. chief", "Jurors' Note Hints at Conviction in Blackwater Case", "Former Blackwater Guards Convicted in Iraq Shooting", "Shock And Dismay After Trump Pardons Blackwater Guards Who Killed 14 Iraqi Civilians", "Trump Pardons Two Russia Inquiry Figures and Blackwater Guards", "Trump pardon of Blackwater Iraq contractors violates international law - UN", "Iraqi Inquiry Says Shooting Was Unprovoked", "Blackwater guards fired unprovoked: Iraq police evidence", "Pentagon Dispatches Investigators to Iraq to Probe Private Security Contractors", "Joint Iraqi-U.S. review begins in wake of Blackwater firefight", "Blackwater faulted by U.S. military: report", "Iraq determined to rein in private security guards", "The Iraqi Account of the Killings [infographic]", "Former Blackwater Employee Sentenced to Life Imprisonment for Murder in 2007 Shooting at Nisur Square in Iraq", "US Lawyers for Blackwater Guards: 2007 Baghdad Shooting was Self-Defense", "From Errand to Fatal Shot to Hail of Fire to 17 Deaths", "Four Former Blackwater Employees Found Guilty of Charges in Fatal Nisur Square Shooting in Iraq", "Iraqi ministers back Blackwater shutdown - CNN.com", "Iraqi Report Says Blackwater Guards Fired First", "State Dept. ", Download the NBC News app for breaking news and politics, Jasem Mohammed Hashem, who was working as a police officer when he was shot in the head in the attack, was also disappointed by Trump's decision to free the men who, he said, "opened fire randomly at the citizens.". Consider what the world of media would look like without The Intercept. In their view, this confirmed that they were under attack by a vehicle bomb, whereupon they fired at the car, killing both people in it as well as the Iraqi policeman. [46] On September 21, CNN reported that Blackwater would resume normal operations the following day. on about your day, ask yourself: How likely is it that the story you just read would have been produced by a different news outlet if The Intercept hadnt done it? He despised Saddam Hussein and his oppressive and vindictive ways. Six of my Blackwater brethren contractors are on the helicopter going to Tikrit. But Trump reached a peace agreement with the Taliban and then lost the re-election bid before he could consider the bizarre proposal. Liberty is one of four former Blackwater mercenaries pardoned by President Donald Trump in one of . The U.N. Human Rights Office says it's "deeply concerned" by the pardons. Further, besides advising and assisting the UAEs petro-monarchy in strengthening the police state, Erik Prince alsoreportedly provided[3] weapons and modified aircraft to eastern Libyas warlord and former CIA asset Khalifa Haftar, backed by Egypt and UAE, in his thwarted military campaign against the Tripoli government lasting from April 2019 to June 2020. [15] The incident sparked at least five investigations, including one from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Dickinson says that the victims' families are likely to feel let down and abandoned by the U.S. government. [83], In September 2013, the charges against Ball were dropped. That wasnt unusual. The order did not say when the suspension would expire. The committee was co-chaired by Abd al Qadir, the Iraqi Minister of Defense, and Patricia A. Butenis, the Charg d'affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. Then-Vice President Joe Biden held a press conference to tell the citizens of Iraq that they would not be abandoned. When Mohammed looked to his right, the driver of the car next to him shouted that the soldiers had just shot into another car in front of them. [78] The opinion elaborated "the government failed to establish that the Iraqi witnesses it presented to the second grand jury were not in any way influenced by their previous exposure to the defendants' compelled statements. https://www.ournewearthnews.com/2022/03/04/massacre-in-ukraine-caught-on-camera-and-probably-still-unfolding-viewer-discretion-advised-please-pray/. Suddenly, bullets began to riddle Mohammeds car. Despite having immense firepower at its disposal that could readily turn the tide in conflicts as protracted as Syrias proxy war, the Russian advance in Ukraine has been slower than expected according to most estimates because Russia is only targeting military infrastructure and doing all it can to minimize collateral damage, particularly needless civilian losses in the former Soviet republic whose majority population is sympathetic to Russia. The Blackwater guards included Nicholas Slatten, who was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of first-degree murder for his role in the 2007 Nisoor Square massacre, when he and other . In addition to the Kinani family, I represented five other families and victims. Five were charged with 14 counts of manslaughter, 20 counts of attempted manslaughter and a weapons violation: Donald Ball, a former Marine from West Valley City, Utah; Dustin Heard, a former Marine from Knoxville, Tennessee; Evan Liberty, a former Marine from Rochester, New Hampshire; Nicholas Slatten, a former army sergeant from Sparta, Tennessee, and Paul Slough, an army veteran from Keller, Texas. The U.S. legal system, a pillar of fairness in the world, had worked. An Iraqi looks at a burned car in Nisour Square in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Yarmukh, on Sept. 24, 2007, eight days after Blackwater guards who were escorting U.S. Embassy officials opened fire there. He thought they had been given a miracle after he saw so many others killed. (Iraqi police) or any of the local security forces fired back at them", the official continued. They left in 2011 but returned in 2014 after the Islamic State militant group overran large parts of the country. [21]:116, During opening arguments for a criminal trial held in 2014, defense lawyers representing former Blackwater members of Raven 23 argued the men felt the approaching Kia was a credible threat as a possible car bomb, and opened fire in self-defense. [6][86] Bringing the weapons charges was disputed within the Justice Department, which initially opposed including them in the indictment. [77] "Prosecutors should therefore have built their case against the men without them", a BBC report explained. A. . Their route home was through Nisour Square. He was shot in the abdomen. He received poor treatment because his injuries were less life threatening, but he was left with a disfigured and useless arm. "[51][52][53], On January 19, 2008, The New York Times reported that the contractor responsible for many of the deaths in the engagement, previously known only as "turret gunner no. [37], Blackwater, which had been operating in Iraq without an Iraqi government license, applied for one after the incident, but the application was rejected by Iraqi officials in January 2009. )[60], Baghdad resident Halim Mashkoor told AP Television News, "We see the security firms doing whatever they want in the streets. After the convictions, Blackwater which changed its name to Xe and then Academi after being sold said it was relieved that the justice system has completed its investigation into a tragedy that occurred at Nisour Square in 2007 and that any wrongdoing that was carried out has been addressed by our courts. On Tuesday, President Trump pardoned four former Blackwater contractors convicted in the killings. Survivors and victims' relatives of a 2007 shooting in Iraq by Blackwater contractors meet with United States prosecutors in Baghdad in 2008. The American judiciary is fair and equitable. I represented the Kinani family and five other victims of the Blackwater guards who were convicted of killing at least 14 innocent Iraqi citizens that day and injured dozens more. [100] UN Human Rights Office spokeswoman Marta Hurtado said that forgiveness "contributes to impunity and has the effect of encouraging others to commit such crimes in the future". [29] Several sources have stated that the explosion was caused by a mortar round, though this is not reflected in the State Department's incident report. The Blackwater guards appeared to have fired grenade launchers in addition to machine guns, according to the report. When the Blackwater contractors were finally convicted seven years later in 2014, that was a sign of relief, but you needed political will for that. The black-op of setting a building in the sprawling nuclear complex alight and then posting doctored video clips of Russian tanks shelling straight at the nuclear plant on social media, promptly verified as authentic by corporate media, was clearly the dirty work of covert saboteurs whove been advising and assisting Ukraines inept security forces and also taking an active part in combat operations in some of the hardest fought battles against Russias security forces north of Kyiv and at Kharkiv and Donbas. Nassar Hamza was 67 years old when he was shot and wounded in the arm. IE 11 is not supported. In 2014, four former government contractors who worked for Blackwater Worldwide, a security firm founded by Erik Prince an ally of Trump and the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos were convicted in federal court in Washington in connection with the killings. They claimed they were fired on, but prosecutors said the Blackwater guards opened fire first. "On what basis did Trump depend on to release them? Why Is Assange in Jail and Not Seymour Hersh? An ambulance was called, and Ali and Mohammad were rushed to the other side of town. President Donald Trump's decision to pardon four Blackwater private security contractors convicted of a massacre in Baghdad has been met with fury by the victims' families in Iraq. [70] A second civil lawsuit filed jointly by the families of six victims against Blackwater was settled on January 6, 2012 for an undisclosed sum. Nasser, who attended the 2014 trial in the United States, said his brother's death had broken his father's heart. How is Eric Prince still breathing? I was thinking the same thing about the Chechens a few days ago. Video of the aftermath includes an image of a human brain on the road in Nisour Square. [87], On April 13, 2015, federal district judge Royce C. Lamberth sentenced Slatten to life in prison, while the other three guards were sentenced to 30 years in prison each. Mahde Shamke was 25 years old and driving a taxi to support his parents and siblings. The order confines most Americans to a 3.5 square miles (9.1km2) area in the center of the city so that they are unable to visit other areas without traveling in a helicopter. NPR reports that sometime after the Al-Qaeda bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000, where 17 sailors were killed, Blackwater won a $46 million contract from the U.S government for "training sailors in counterterrorism." After the September 11th attacks, Blackwater expanded their security-related work . In his meetings with the high-ups in the US national security agencies, Erik Prince reportedly obtained a gentlemans promise, though without any documentary assurances due to the secretive nature of the Faustian pact, that he and his associates would not be held legally liable for the dirty work they do in the Ukraine proxy war. President Donald Trump pardoned four former Blackwater mercenaries on Tuesday who had been convicted for their role in the Nisour Square massacre that left 14 people dead in Baghdad in 2007. ", Trump Grants Slew Of Pardons, Including To George Papadopoulos And Duncan Hunter, Blackwater Guards Found Guilty In 2007 Shootings In Iraq, Lawyer For Victims' Families On Trump Pardoning 4 Former Blackwater Contractors. Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard were convicted six years ago in the killing of 14 Iraqi civilians and the wounding of 17 others. Erik Prince, chairman of the Prince Group, LLC and Blackwater USA, tesifies during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in 2007. pardon four Blackwater private security contractors, US announces troop withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan. [17], Just before noon on September 16, 2007, a car bomb exploded near the Izdihar Compound where US and Iraqi officials were meeting,[20]:547 and a 19-man Blackwater Tactical Support Team (TST) consisting of a convoy of four trucks, answering to the call sign "Raven 23", took up positions on the south side of Nisour Square to secure an evacuation route for the US officials and another Blackwater team providing security for them.

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