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Monday, 8 December 2008
U.S. prosecutor in Blackwater shooting case arrives in Baghdad
An American prosecutor working on the case against the five Blackwater security guards indicted in connection with a 2007 shooting in Baghdad has arrived in Iraq and will be meeting with victims’ families this week.
U.S. prosecutor in Blackwater shooting case arrives in Baghdad
By Katherine Zoepf 7 December 2008
BAGHDAD: An American prosecutor working on the case against the five Blackwater security guards indicted in connection with a 2007 shooting in Baghdad has arrived in Iraq and will be meeting with victims’ families this week.
An Iraqi official familiar with the investigation told The New York Times that the meeting would take place Saturday in the National Police Headquarters, a stone’s throw from Nisour Square, the traffic circle in Baghdad where at least 17 Iraqis were killed on Sept. 16, 2007, by private security guards working for Blackwater Worldwide.
The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is contacting victims’ families before that meeting, the official said. The prosecutor will make a presentation to the families as a group, he said, briefing them about how the investigation has been conducted to date, taking them through what will happen during the trial and explaining how they can make claims against Blackwater.
“The prosecutor is coming on Saturday to tell people what is going to happen, and especially how to make claims,” said the official, who asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak about the investigation. “He will speak in front of all of them. The families of the victims deserve to know what comes next.”
A team from the FBI is in Iraq, the official said, and has been interviewing Iraqi witnesses to the shootings. Four witnesses have been extensively interviewed and are preparing to fly to the United States to testify at the trial, he added. An FBI spokeswoman, reached in Washington, said she had “no comment on Blackwater,” before hanging up the phone.
Blackwater maintains that its employees - hired to guard American diplomats in Iraq - were firing in response to an attack. But Iraqi investigators, supported by witness accounts, have failed to turn up evidence of any attack on Blackwater guards that might have provoked the shooting.
Abdulwahab Abdulkader, 33, a bank employee who is one of the four witnesses expected to testify at the trial, said he was on his way to buy a birthday gift for a friend’s daughter when he got caught in a traffic jam at Nisour Square on the morning of the shooting. The gridlock, he said, included a convoy of Blackwater vehicles.
Abdulkader said the company’s guards opened fire on the vehicles in the traffic circle without warning or apparent provocation.
He said he watched a car with a woman and a young man inside explode into flames after it came under fire. Frightened, he said he started to drive in the direction of his house, but a Blackwater vehicle followed and forced him to stop by ramming into his car. He said guards then fired three shots through the roof. One of the bullets hit him in the right arm. He said he still has difficulty performing certain tasks with his arm.
In the weeks after the shooting, Abdulkader said, FBI agents showed him satellite images of the circle and asked him detailed questions about the position of his car and the direction that the bullets had come from. Agents also examined his car, he said, and eventually purchased it from him.
Abdulkader said he had been flown to the United States in May where he appeared before a federal grand jury. He said that he and other victims had been invited to Blackwater’s offices in Baghdad’s Green Zone and that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad had given him $7,500 as partial compensation.
Mohammed Hafedh, whose 9-year-old son was killed in the incident, said he has refused offers of compensation from the U.S. Embassy.
“We were guilty of nothing more than being Iraqis,” he said. “I’m glad they are going to trial because this will stop them. Justice has to be accomplished.”
In Baquba on Sunday, meanwhile, a bomb exploded in a busy market just as a large group of local government and security officials arrived in the area.
Thirty-six people were wounded, some of them seriously, an official of the Iraqi Interior Ministry said.
Among the wounded were the mayor of Baquba, Abdullah al-Hayali, and Raghib al-Omairi, the municipal security chief.
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U.S. prosecutor in Blackwater shooting case arrives in Baghdad
By Katherine Zoepf
7 December 2008
BAGHDAD: An American prosecutor working on the case against the five Blackwater security guards indicted in connection with a 2007 shooting in Baghdad has arrived in Iraq and will be meeting with victims’ families this week.
An Iraqi official familiar with the investigation told The New York Times that the meeting would take place Saturday in the National Police Headquarters, a stone’s throw from Nisour Square, the traffic circle in Baghdad where at least 17 Iraqis were killed on Sept. 16, 2007, by private security guards working for Blackwater Worldwide.
The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is contacting victims’ families before that meeting, the official said. The prosecutor will make a presentation to the families as a group, he said, briefing them about how the investigation has been conducted to date, taking them through what will happen during the trial and explaining how they can make claims against Blackwater.
“The prosecutor is coming on Saturday to tell people what is going to happen, and especially how to make claims,” said the official, who asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak about the investigation. “He will speak in front of all of them. The families of the victims deserve to know what comes next.”
A team from the FBI is in Iraq, the official said, and has been interviewing Iraqi witnesses to the shootings. Four witnesses have been extensively interviewed and are preparing to fly to the United States to testify at the trial, he added. An FBI spokeswoman, reached in Washington, said she had “no comment on Blackwater,” before hanging up the phone.
Blackwater maintains that its employees - hired to guard American diplomats in Iraq - were firing in response to an attack. But Iraqi investigators, supported by witness accounts, have failed to turn up evidence of any attack on Blackwater guards that might have provoked the shooting.
Abdulwahab Abdulkader, 33, a bank employee who is one of the four witnesses expected to testify at the trial, said he was on his way to buy a birthday gift for a friend’s daughter when he got caught in a traffic jam at Nisour Square on the morning of the shooting. The gridlock, he said, included a convoy of Blackwater vehicles.
Abdulkader said the company’s guards opened fire on the vehicles in the traffic circle without warning or apparent provocation.
He said he watched a car with a woman and a young man inside explode into flames after it came under fire. Frightened, he said he started to drive in the direction of his house, but a Blackwater vehicle followed and forced him to stop by ramming into his car. He said guards then fired three shots through the roof. One of the bullets hit him in the right arm. He said he still has difficulty performing certain tasks with his arm.
In the weeks after the shooting, Abdulkader said, FBI agents showed him satellite images of the circle and asked him detailed questions about the position of his car and the direction that the bullets had come from. Agents also examined his car, he said, and eventually purchased it from him.
Abdulkader said he had been flown to the United States in May where he appeared before a federal grand jury. He said that he and other victims had been invited to Blackwater’s offices in Baghdad’s Green Zone and that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad had given him $7,500 as partial compensation.
Mohammed Hafedh, whose 9-year-old son was killed in the incident, said he has refused offers of compensation from the U.S. Embassy.
“We were guilty of nothing more than being Iraqis,” he said. “I’m glad they are going to trial because this will stop them. Justice has to be accomplished.”
In Baquba on Sunday, meanwhile, a bomb exploded in a busy market just as a large group of local government and security officials arrived in the area.
Thirty-six people were wounded, some of them seriously, an official of the Iraqi Interior Ministry said.
Among the wounded were the mayor of Baquba, Abdullah al-Hayali, and Raghib al-Omairi, the municipal security chief.
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