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Thats what lawyers do in the United States: We fight for those who cant fight for themselves. But he knew he was surviving as he kept yelling for the children in the back of his SUV to stay down. Nicholas Slatten, Evan Liberty, Paul Slough and Devin Heard were convicted on charges of first-degree murder and manslaughter by a federal jury in October 2014. When Mohammed saw the convoy enter the traffic circle, he initially thought they were regular U.S. Army members. Trump pardons ex-campaign aide and disgraced Republican lawmakers, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. "How are these criminals released after they killed 17 innocent people?" They then set off stun grenades to clear the scene. A caption at the bottom of the screen states . Mohammed would look to see what was happening. Adela Sulimanis a London-based reporter for NBC News Digital. [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. He was shot through the roof of his car as the Blackwater convoy drove past firing down into traffic. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Civilian Warriors: The Inside Story of Blackwater and the Unsung Heroes of the, at the best online prices at eBay! Raven 23 "returned defensive fire" and withdrew from Nisour Square with one of its BearCat vehicles in tow. 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. Mohammed quickly got out of the car and saw blood inside the rear window. [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. Blackwater was founded by ex-Navy SEAL Erik Prince in 1997 as a shooting range and military training ground in Moyock, North Carolina. [3] Erik Prince provided weapons and aircraft to eastern Libyas warlord Khalifa Haftar: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/25/world/middleeast/libya-mercenaries-arms-embargo.html. [44] Blackwater's operations on behalf of the U.S. Department of State and the CIA may be unaffected by license revocation. Nasser, who attended the 2014 trial in the United States, said his brother's death had broken his father's heart. The U.S. legal system, a pillar of fairness in the world, had worked. [63], A U.S. judge's decision to dismiss all charges against Blackwater on January 1, 2010, sparked outrage in the Arab world. An ambulance was called, and Ali and Mohammad were rushed to the other side of town. The Nisour Square Massacre, in which Blackwater mercenaries fired hundreds of rounds in a crowded Baghdad traffic square, killing fourteen Iraqis, including ten women and two children, and . [93], On December 19, 2018, Slatten was found guilty of murder[94] and again was sentenced to life in prison on August 14, 2019. The shooting ended as suddenly as it started. [14], On October 2, 2007, the Democratic staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released a report stating that Blackwater USA guards had used deadly force weekly in Iraq and had inflicted "significant casualties and property damage". It was an honor to represent these victims and their families. [82][20] On June 5, 2012, the US Supreme Court declined to review the Appeal Court ruling, allowing the trial to proceed. Each time the criminal charges were seemed lost, the U.S. Department of Justice told them they were not forgotten that we would continue to pursue the convictions of those who committed the crimes against them. The ones who were killed on the street were shot running for their lives. [43], The Private Security Company Association of Iraq, in a document last updated on July 3, 2007, listed Blackwater as not having a license to operate in Iraq despite their attempts to apply for one. The Nisour Square massacre occurred on September 16, 2007, when employees of Blackwater Security Consulting (now Constellis), a private military company contracted by the US government to provide security services in Iraq, shot at Iraqi civilians, killing 17 and injuring 20 in Nisour Square, Baghdad, while escorting a U.S. embassy convoy. Now they'll go free. Prosecutors said the Blackwater convoy launched an unprovoked attack using sniper fire, machine guns and grenade launchers. 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. On Tuesday, President Trump pardoned four former Blackwater contractors convicted in the killings. None of the bullets the lab had available could be matched to the rifles used by the guards. These convictions happened under the Obama Administration. The American judiciary is fair and equitable. Defence lawyers argued their clients returned fire after being ambushed by Iraqi insurgents. Now justice has been undone by the stroke of a pen," Sarah Holewinski, the organization's Washington director, said in a statement. The pardons could damage the United States' reputation abroad, as they undo the significance of the convictions, which had demonstrated that U.S. military contractors could be held accountable if they conducted criminal actions. 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. [54] He enlisted in 1999, and served in Bosnia with the 3rd Infantry Division. [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. [2] 16,000 volunteers coming to Ukraine, Zelensky: https://www.rt.com/russia/551149-zelensky-ukraine-foreign-fighters/. Following Russias intervention in Ukraine, Germany alone hasproudly bragged[4] of dispatching caches of 500 US-made surface-to-air Stinger missiles and 2,700 Soviet-era, shoulder-fired Strelamissiles to Ukraines conscript military. As shootings in the square were not uncommon, it is unclear whether the shells were from the shooting in question or from other incidents. My law firm received a call from an immigration attorney the next year seeking representation for the Blackwaters victims, and I was eventually retained to represent the Kinani family in a civil lawsuit against Blackwater, Prince, and various other Blackwater companies and, of course, the men who were charged and eventually convicted of murder, manslaughter, and weapons charges for their conduct. The Nisour Square massacre was one of the lowest episodes of the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq. [66] Howard Krongard, who was appointed Inspector General of the U.S. State Department in 2005,[67] resigned in December 2007 after he was accused by the House Oversight Committee of improperly interfering with investigations into the Blackwater Baghdad shootings. [80], On April 22, 2011, after closed-door testimony, a federal appeals-court panel revived the Justice Department's prosecution of the former Blackwater Worldwide guards by reinstating the manslaughter charges against the five men. Dozens of witnesses were brought to the United States to testify about what happened. [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. The Blackwater guards were firing indiscriminately. courts. Donald Trump has pardoned four security guards from the private military firm Blackwater who were serving jail sentences for killing 14 civilians including two children in Baghdad in 2007, a massacre that sparked an international outcry over the use of mercenaries in war. The incident happened at the height of the "military surge" ordered by the then President George W. Bush to bring the armed resistance against the occupation in Iraq under control. 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. Contractor Banned by Iraq Over Shootings", "F.B.I. [36], On September 19, as a result of the incident, the United States temporarily suspended all land travel by U.S. diplomats and other civilian officials in Iraq outside Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone. Erik Prince, chair of the Prince Group LLC and Blackwater USA, holds up a picture showing the effect of a car bomb while testifying during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on Capitol Hill Oct. 2, 2007 in Washington, D.C. Mohammed was going to visit his sister and her children. We are taking fire from insurgents and Iraqi police. Video of the aftermath includes an image of a human brain on the road in Nisour Square. He could not understand what was happening or why. WaPo says, 'Investigators for the military and the FBI later described . The Iraqi government ordered Blackwater to leave Iraq as soon as a joint Iraqi-U.S. committee finished drafting new guidelines on private contractors under the Iraqi-U.S. security agreement. Ukraine War Anniversary: UN and China Work for Peace, Devilish Zelensky, Kiev Hid Its Dead Soldiers in the Ravines. Ali was the youngest of Blackwaters victims that day. (Iraqi police) or any of the local security forces fired back at them", the official continued. The headrest next to him where his sister sat had a bullet hole through it. 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. [54] He received an honorable discharge in 2002 and then enlisted in the Texas National Guard. Supporters of the former contractors at Blackwater Worldwide had lobbied for the pardons, arguing that the men had been excessively punished. After it was added, defense attorneys contended a 30-year sentence would be too severe, since the law was intended to deter gang members from carrying automatic weapons. [99], Clemency caused outrage among Iraqi citizens and family members of the victims. The majority of the Blackwater mercenaries in Iraq after the . [46] On September 21, CNN reported that Blackwater would resume normal operations the following day. How many covert wars, miscarriages of justice, and dystopian technologies would remain hidden if our reporters werent on the beat? He was shot while seated in a public bus. "How are. The report found that the guards fired their weapons 195 times from the beginning of 2005 through the second week of September 2005. I commented when the convictions were first brought that I was certain my clients who were still residents of Iraq were pleased to know that justice had been served. 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. He was driving on flat tires and with a shattered windshield. He saw the man next to him run. Russian Forces strike Ukrainian Armys Electronic Intelligence Center in Kiev Region. Despite the public display of uncharacteristic valor by sporting military fatigues and flaunting images and video clips of soldiers proudly standing beside caches of MANPADS and Javelins on social media, Ukraines conscript army was so frightened following Russias military intervention that it wanted to surrender territory and opted instead for mounting guerrilla warfare by adopting hit-and-run tactics from the safety of border regions of Poland and Romania. [21]:116[22] The Blackwater commander, Jimmy Watson, had received an order to stand by and not leave the Green Zone upon reaching a checkpoint, but he made a "tactical decision" to advance to Nisour Square after waiting for a few minutes; upon informing the Blackwater Tactical Operations Center of this, he was ordered to return to the Green Zone. It remains unclear whether the team member mistook the civilians for insurgents. The black-ops of NATOs mercenaries in Ukraine were being directed from Ukraines Security Service (SSU) headquarter and the main center for information and psychological operations in Kyiv. Since the harrowing Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad in 2007, the Blackwater private military contractor, renamed as Academi in 2011 and becoming a subsidiary of Constellis Group following a merger with Triple Canopy in 2014, has built quite a business empire for itself. In addition to the Kinani family, I represented five other families and victims. A 20,000-strong mercenary army is being assembled in Poland. [1][2][3] The killings outraged Iraqis and strained relations between Iraq and the United States. 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. [6][85][86] Jurors sided with prosecutors' contention that the shooting was a criminal act, not a battlefield encounter gone wrong. courts. The man that just spoken to him was dead. The Intercept is an independent nonprofit news outlet. Mohammed met members of the U.S. Army on the streets and handed out candy and juice when he saw them. 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. Convoy Attacked in Baghdad, Sparking a Shootout", "3 Blackwater Guards Called Baghdad Shootings Unjustified", "Blackwater Denies Any Wrongdoing in Shooting Incident (Update1)", "Iraqi leader urges U.S. to cancel Blackwater contract", "Iraqi Investigators say Videotape Shows Blackwater Guards Fired Without Aggravation", "House Passes Bill That Would Hike Penalties for U.S. Security Contractors in Iraq", "Private Security Company Association Iraq", "Iraqi Government Disputes Blackwater USA's Version of Shooting", "Iraq battle was self-defense, security firm says", "FBI takes lead in probe over Blackwater crisis", "Blackwater most often shoots first, congressional report says", "Report: Blackwater Killings Unjustified", "From Texas to Iraq, and Center of Blackwater Case", No forensic match for ammo in Blackwater shooting, "The Associated Press: APNewsBreak: Blackwater founder questions FBI work", "Overcoming post-colonial myopia: A call to recognize and regulate private military companie"s, Judge Advocate General's Corps, U.S. Army, "Wounded Iraqis: 'No one did anything' to provoke Blackwater", "Blackwater incident witness: 'It was hell', Family Members of Slain Iraqis Sue Blackwater USA for Deadly Baghdad Shooting, "Blackwater Verdict a U.S. 'Snub' of Iraqi Leader Nouri al-Maliki: Kayhan, Islamic Republic of Iran", "White House: Contractor bill would have 'intolerable' effects", "Blackwater settles Nisoor Square lawsuit", "5 Blackwater guards face manslaughter charges", "Blackwater Guard in Secret Deal to Testify in Massacre Case", "US judge sets trial in 2010 for Blackwater guards", "Appeals court revives Blackwater shooting case", "US judge dismisses charges in Blackwater Iraq killings", "Reopening of Blackwater Case Confuses Iraqi Victims", "Biden Says U.S. Will Appeal Blackwater Case Dismissal (Published 2010)", "ICD - Slough et al. The Nisour Square massacre was the FBI's most comprehensive and expensive criminal investigation since 9/11. [10][11] The next day, Blackwater Worldwide's license to operate in Iraq was temporarily revoked. Abraham Al Mafrage was a 70-year-old farmer and father of seven who was also shot in the head and died that day. The massacre resulted in the deaths of 17 unarmed Iraqis and wounded at least 20 others. Each step of the way, the U.S. legal system ensured that these men were given fair and just prosecutions. Extending the hand of friendship, Russia significantly drawdown its forces along the western border before the summit last year. My clients assuredly feel ignored, mistreated, and used. The hospital was too busy. They are coming to defend freedom, defend life. [58] Nor is the US a signatory of the 1977 additional protocol to the 1949 Geneva Conventions in which Article 47 specifies that mercenaries are civilians who "take a direct part in the hostilities" and are "motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain". Ukrainian POW Unveils, Russian forces eliminating Ukrainian saboteurs that violated border, Greetings from Oujda, Morocco, the City of Mosques, VT RADIO: Exposing East Palestine Train Derailment Disaster with VTs, VT RADIO: Foreign Policy Gone Mad with VTs Senior Editor, VT RADIO: UFOs, Aliens, & Chinese Balloons with VTs Jack, Many Predicted NATO Expansion Would Lead to War. Mohammed and his sister screamed for their children to get down. 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." [26][29], An Iraqi government account of the incident stated that as the convoy drew close to Nisour Square, a Kia sedan with a woman and her adult son in it was approaching the square from a distance, driving slowly on the wrong side of the road, and that the driver ignored a police officer's whistle to clear a path for the convoy. The result of the long legal battle is that each man was ensured a fair trial, free of partiality and without unjust favor. As he was leaving, his youngest son, who was affectionately given the nickname Alawi, asked to go with his father. [59] (The Protocol makes no distinction between defensive and offensive actions, but the U.S. does make such a distinction, in that it does not regard defensive actions by security guards to be combat. [9], Blackwater guards claimed that the convoy was ambushed and that they fired at the attackers in defense of the convoy. The security industry has evolved drastically since those events, and under the direction of new ownership and leadership, Academi has invested heavily in compliance and ethics programmes, training for our employees, and preventative measures to strictly comply with all US and local government laws.. That notion has now been shown to be false, Dickinson says. Dickinson says that the victims' families are likely to feel let down and abandoned by the U.S. government. There are numerous reported incidents of mass murder conducted by US soldiers, special forces. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. He received poor treatment because his injuries were less life threatening, but he was left with a disfigured and useless arm. Monday's sentencing was. It was chaotic. "This incident motivated the Iraqi authorities to seek the withdrawal of American troops from the country. [40], On October 11, 2007, the Center for Constitutional Rights filed suit against Blackwater USA under the Alien Tort Claims Act on behalf of an injured Iraqi and the families of three of the seventeen Iraqis who were killed by Blackwater employees during the September 16, 2007, shooting incident. "These are four innocent guys, and it is completely justified," Bill Coffield, a lawyer for Evan Liberty, told the AP. [28] Nicholas Slatten was found guilty of first-degree murder, and Slough, Liberty and Heard were found guilty of voluntary and attempted manslaughter charges, and of using a machine gun to commit a violent crime. [16] The FBI investigation found that, of the 17 Iraqis killed by the guards, at least 14 were shot without cause. "Victims of gross human rights violations and serious violations of international humanitarian law also have the right to a remedy. The killing of innocent civilians, including two young boys, sparked international outrage and public scrutiny into the use of private military companies . Rogers. An initial prosecution was thrown out by a federal judge sparking outrage in Iraq but the then vice-president, Joe Biden, promised to pursue a fresh prosecution, which succeeded in 2015. October 22 2014, 9:58 a.m. A federal jury in Washington, D.C., returned guilty verdicts against four . Shots were fired everywhere. The deaths provoked international outrage and raised questions about the use of private security firms in war zones. For those of you who are not aware, Erik Prince (Blackwater/Academi) personally sold to the CIA the concept of a mercenary army to conduct hybrid war ops and/or crypto-guerrilla war against Russia. [56], On April 1, 2011, the Associated Press reported on Erik Prince's seven-hour testimony about what allegedly transpired. [19] According to this account, the security team fired warning shots and then lethal fire at the Kia. Nicholas Slatten, 35, was a former security guard at the private US military firm Blackwater and was based in Baghdad. Let us assume that I travel to America and kill 17 American citizens. Free shipping for many products! "This was the slaughter of innocent civilians who were merely going about their day when a Blackwater convoy rolled through a traffic circle after having violated orders to stand down and not exit the Green Zone and began firing indiscriminately into cars that were carrying people going to work.". "I don't know what I did to Blackwater," Kinani told ABC News. Trump Just Pardoned Those Convicted Killers", "Pardons in killings of Iraqi civilians stir angry response", "Chief of Blackwater Defends His Employees", "Tracing the Paths of 5 Who Died in a Storm of Gunfire", "Blackwater Execs Remain Free as Guards Convicted for Killing 14 Iraqis in Massacre", Use of white phosphorus by the United States, United States and the International Criminal Court, A Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, "The wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time", AfghanIraqi Freedom Memorial (Salem, Oregon), The Iraq War: A Historiography of Wikipedia Changelogs, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nisour_Square_massacre&oldid=1141803510, Violent non-state actor incidents in Asia, People convicted of murder by the United States federal government, Pages using embedded infobox templates with the title parameter, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 26 February 2023, at 22:05. [25][31], The account by the Blackwater firm differed from the Iraqi government's account; Blackwater's account stated the driver of the Kia sedan had kept driving toward the convoy, ignoring verbal orders, hand signals, and water bottles thrown at the car, and continued to approach even when fired upon. 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. "Trump pardons Blackwater contractors jailed for massacre of Iraq civilians", 23 December 2020. He was in the car next to Mohammed. [15] The incident sparked at least five investigations, including one from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Everything was eerily quiet. Ali was slumped over against the glass. 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. Thats all it takes to support the journalism you rely on. Who would hold party elites accountable to the values they proclaim to have? [63] The suit was settled for an undisclosed sum in January 2010. [89][90][91] The panel also recommended that Slatten undergo a re-trial on the grounds that it was unjustifiable to try him with his co-defendants, and that he should have been tried separately. Boslego also said the attack had a negative effect on our mission, [an] adverse effect It made our relationship with the Iraqis in general more strained.. [42] A spokesman stated that the ban would last for the duration of the investigation, and that it would not be permanent. "Pardoning them contributes to impunity and has the effect of emboldening others to commit such crimes in the future. [47], The U.S. State Department said it planned to investigate what it called a "terrible incident". Circuit Holds It Cruel and Unusual to Impose Mandatory Thirty-Year Sentence on Military Contractors for Gun Charge, "Former Blackwater contractor found guilty of murder in Iraq massacre", "Former Blackwater Guard Sentenced to Life for 2007 Baghdad Traffic-Circle Shooting", "Former Blackwater security contractor sentenced to life in Iraq shootings; In all, 10 men, two women and two boys, ages 9 and 11, were killed", "Blackwater Contractors Resentenced in 2007 Attack on Baghdad Civilians", "Survivors of Blackwater massacre in Iraq slam Trump's pardons for US guards behind killing", "Statement from the Press Secretary Regarding Executive Grants of Clemency", "Relative of Blackwater victim in Iraq says pardons 'unfair', "UN criticises Trump's pardons for Blackwater guards jailed over Iraq killings", "I Sued Blackwater for the Massacre of Iraqi Civilians. 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. 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 . [I]f such a thing happened in America or Britain, would the American president or American citizens accept it? [45] Also, it is not clear whether the license revocation is permanent. It wasnt unusual for regular U.S. Army convoys to stop traffic. Spring flowers are planted in Nisour Square, the site of a deadly shootout by Blackwater private security contractors in 2007, in Baghdad on April 15, 2015. The kind of reporting we do is essential to democracy, but it is not easy, cheap, or profitable. RT has asked experts to share their thoughts on what the incident meant for Washington's Middle East policy and the likelihood of another tragedy like this. Iraqi traffic police initially tried to wave down the Blackwater men that there was no threat, but they too had to run for cover. Its worth recalling that before the Biden-Putin summit at Geneva last June, Russia had a similar troop build-up along Ukraines borders. "The ministry believes that this decision did not take into account the seriousness of the crime committed and was inconsistent with the U.S. administration's declared commitment to the values of human rights, justice, and the rule of law, and regrettably ignores the dignity of the victims," it said. 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? [41], Richard J. Griffin, the Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security, who made key decisions regarding the department's oversight of private security contractor Blackwater USA, resigned in November 2007, after a critical review by the House Oversight Committee found that his office had failed to adequately supervise private contractors during the Blackwater Baghdad shootings. security contractors who had previously been sentenced over the death of 17 Iraqi civilians in the 2007 Nisur Square massacre . "[46] Hasan Jaber Salman, a lawyer who was one of the wounded, said that "no one did anything to provoke Blackwater" and that "as we turned back they opened fire at all cars from behind"[61] An Iraqi police officer who was directing traffic at the scene said Blackwater guards "became the terrorists" when they opened fire on civilians unprovoked, while a businessman said he wasn't seeking compensation but only "the truth" from the guards. 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