Tuesday, 9 December 2008
5 Guards Charged with Manslaughter in Iraq Deaths
In the first public airing of a case that remains the source of fierce international outrage, the Justice Department unsealed indictments here against five Blackwater security guards, accusing them of manslaughter and misuse of their firearms for the 2007 shooting in Baghdad’s Nisour Square that killed 17 Iraqi civilians and injured as many more.
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5 Guards Charged with Manslaughter in Iraq Deaths
By Ginger Thompson
9 December 2008
WASHINGTON: In the first public airing of a case that remains the source of fierce international outrage, the Justice Department unsealed indictments here against five Blackwater security guards, accusing them of manslaughter and misuse of their firearms for the 2007 shooting in Baghdad’s Nisour Square that killed 17 Iraqi civilians and injured as many more.
Prosecutors also announced that a sixth Blackwater guard, Jeremy Ridgeway, 35, of California, pleaded guilty to two counts of manslaughter last week. Court documents said Ridgeway told investigators that he and the other guards improperly used deadly force against drivers and pedestrians who “posed no threat to the convoy.”
Officials refused to say whether Ridgeway’s guilty plea indicated that he would testify against the other five.
Meanwhile the five, all decorated military veterans who had served the United States in trouble spots around the world and who were employed by Blackwater Worldwide, the largest security contractor in Iraq , surrendered together at a federal courthouse in Salt Lake City, Utah, where their lawyers accused the government of overstepping their authority and of tarnishing their clients’ records of honorable service.
Mark Hulkower, a lawyer for one of the defendants, said the men surrendered in Utah, a relatively conservative, pro-military area, because they hoped to find a jury pool where “people are more sympathetic to the experiences of coming under enemy fire.”
The court documents released Monday, however, said that Ridgeway had acted on purpose and without any justification when he fired his assault rifle into two vehicles.
“While there were dangers in Baghdad in September 2007, there were also ordinary people going about their lives performing mundane, daily tasks, like making their way through a crowded traffic circle,” Assistant Attorney General Patrick Rowan said at a news briefing.
Because the accused disregarded their obligations to protect such people, “the consequences were devastating.” Rowan said. “The government alleges today that at least 34 unarmed Iraqi civilians, including women and children, were killed or injured without justification or provocation by these security guards in the shooting at Nisour Square.”
Jeffrey Taylor, the United States attorney for the District of Columbia, said the victims were ordinary Iraqi civilians going about their lives. “The first victim was later identified as a second-year medical student named Ahmed Haithem Ahmed Al Rubia’y, who was driving a white Kia sedan that was approaching the traffic circle from the south,” Taylor said. “The passenger of that vehicle was also shot and killed. That victim was Dr. Al Khazali, the mother of the driver of the vehicle.”
“None of the victims of this shooting was armed,” Taylor went on. “None of them was an insurgent. Many were shot while inside civilian vehicles that were attempting to flee from the convoy. One victim was shot in the chest while standing in the street with his hands up. Another was injured from an grenade fired into a nearby girls’ school.”
Legal experts suggested that the defendants would attempt to fend off the prosecution on technical grounds before an examination before a jury of the events at the center of the case.
Conviction could lead to long jail sentences, even decades of imprisonment.
Laws covering the actions of private contractors remain both unclear and untested, legal experts said.
This case has also been emblematic of the strained relations between the United States and the government of Iraq, which has insisted on holding security contractors responsible under Iraqi law for any future transgressions. The issue was central to adoption of the new security pact that is to govern forces in Iraq in the future.
Prosecutors said charges against the contractors were filed under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, which has been used to prosecute military personnel for crimes committed abroad.
In 2004, the law was amended to cover personnel whose work provides support to military personnel overseas. Prosecutors said that they will argue that the amendment covers security contractors working for the State Department in Iraq. The government will apparently argue in court that since Iraq is a war zone, Blackwater’s diplomatic security work might have been handled by the United States military if it had not been outsourced.
The indictments are the culmination of a series of multipronged investigations that were started Sept. 16, 2007, when a Blackwater convoy opened fire on a busy Baghdad traffic circle. The guards told investigators they believed they were under attack. Investigators found no evidence to support the guards’ accounts.
Joseph Persichini Jr. the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington field office, said that the Blackwater shooting case was one of the most difficult investigations ever conducted by the FBI A team of 10 FBI special agents deployed to Iraq for four weeks, with four follow-up trips to the country. More than 250 interviews of witnesses were conducted, and 200 pieces of physical evidence have been gathered for the trial, he said.
Taylor told reporters during a news conference at the Justice Department on Monday that the government believes it has answers to the questions of jurisdiction and venue that are expected to be raised by the defense. He also said that the government “takes no pleasure” in prosecuting those who help defend their fellow Americans overseas, but that the shootings in Nisour Square represented a blatant disregard for human life of non-Americans.
“We honor the brave service of the many U.S. contractors who are employed to support the mission of our armed forces in extremely difficult circumstances,” Taylor said. “Today, we honor that service by holding accountable the very few individuals who abused that employment by committing some very serious crimes against dozens of innocent civilians.”
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