For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. The Nisour Square massacre was the FBIs most comprehensive and expensive criminal investigation since 9/11. [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. It was as if someone had targeted the area in his SUV where a persons head would have been. Mohammed forced a doctor to look at Ali. "[29], On October 4, 2007, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced that it would be taking the lead in the investigation of the shooting incident. This is not for the faint of heart but allegedly a video from the Ukraine conflict at a check-point at Mariupol which is surrounded by Russian troops. Or should I say Why is he still breathing? [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. Survivors and victims' relatives of a 2007 shooting in Iraq by Blackwater contractors meet with United States prosecutors in Baghdad in 2008. [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. [4] Germany to ship anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-to-ship-anti-aircraft-missiles-to-ukraine-reports/a-60995325. "The civilians that were fired upon, they didn't have any weapons to fire back at them. U.S. troops were coming under fire in Baghdad and major Iraqi cities from the resistance forces. Nicholas Slatten, 35, was a former security guard at the private US military firm Blackwater and was based in Baghdad. He despised Saddam Hussein and his oppressive and vindictive ways. I am overwhelmed with emotion at this fantastic news.. Mohammed met members of the U.S. Army on the streets and handed out candy and juice when he saw them. However, after "Raven 23" entered Nisour Square, Watson was ordered to "lock down the traffic circle to expedite the travel of [the other Blackwater team]". Dickinson says that the victims' families are likely to feel let down and abandoned by the U.S. government. Their bodies were beaten and burned, with their charred corpses then dragged through the city streets before being hanged over a bridge crossing the Euphrates River. 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. 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.. During the litigation, an appeal was ongoing in the 4h Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia. They claimed they were fired on, but prosecutors said the Blackwater guards opened fire first. He was shot while seated in a public bus. December 23, 2020 at 2:57 pm. The shooting ended as suddenly as it started. The U.S. legal system, a pillar of fairness in the world, had worked. "[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. The killing of innocent civilians, including two young boys, sparked international outrage and public scrutiny into the use of private military companies . 3", is named Paul Slough. That may be the overriding damage caused by these pardons. The four were convicted at then VP Joe Biden's insistence, and were serving jail terms. [37], Henry Waxman, the chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which held hearings on the use of Private Security Contractors in February 2007, said his committee would hold hearings "to understand what has happened and the extent of the damage to U.S. security interests". Mohammed kept seeing the man on the ground next to him being fired upon as he lay dead. "It was obviously excessive", a U.S. military official speaking on condition of anonymity told the Washington Post. "Paul Slough and his colleagues didn't deserve to spend one minute in prison," Brian Heberlig, a lawyer for Slough, told The Associated Press. Of the $10 billion humanitarian and military assistance for Ukraine announced by the Biden administration, the top brass of the Pentagon is reportedly making preparations for allocating a significant portion of the funds for providing military training and arms to almost a million refugees who have fled Ukraine following the war. It looks at the rise of private security contractors such as Blackwater in the era of modern warfare. Mohammed turned his bullet-riddled SUV around and drove back to the closest hospital only a few blocks behind him. Are they going to release me?". He told NPR on Wednesday that he was shocked by Trump's pardons he himself had made trips to the U.S. to give testimony in the proceedings against the four. [71], In December 2008, the United States Department of Justice announced it was filing criminal charges against five of the Blackwater employees, and ordered them to surrender to the FBI. [79] Three weeks later, Vice President Joe Biden, who was overseeing U.S. policy in Iraq, promised Iraqi leaders the U.S. would appeal the dismissal of these charges. Russian-American political scientist Malek Dudakov called the shooting a landmark event and a major international scandal. Blackwater and its employees had been given immunity from any criminal or civil exposure in Iraq that was part of Princes contract with the State Department. The Nisour Square massacre was one of the lowest episodes of the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq. Nicky Woolf in New York. Trump pardons ex-campaign aide and disgraced Republican lawmakers, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. The Nisour Square massacreoccurred on September 16, 2007, when employees of Blackwater Security Consulting (now Constellis), a private military companycontracted 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. [42] A spokesman stated that the ban would last for the duration of the investigation, and that it would not be permanent. [77] "Prosecutors should therefore have built their case against the men without them", a BBC report explained. 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. Its worth recalling that before the Biden-Putin summit at Geneva last June, Russia had a similar troop build-up along Ukraines borders. Again, the result was the civil legal system exhausting every defense afforded to Blackwater and the men. 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. 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. Trumps pardon of the Blackwater mercenaries who murdered 14 Iraqi civilians at Nisour Square shows the world what justice means in the United States. [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. Ghasson Mahmood was a 55-year-old civil engineer. It is unfortunate and sad that those efforts have now been wasted. [37] A senior aide to al-Maliki said that three of the Blackwater guards were Iraqis and could be subject to prosecution. https://t.co/O88HKyb3wd, Kevin Reed | wsws.org (@KevinReedWSWS) March 4, 2022. He was driving on flat tires and with a shattered windshield. [1][2][3] The killings outraged Iraqis and strained relations between Iraq and the United States. [8][98] A White House statement said the men had a "long history of service to the nation" as veterans of the US Armed Forces, and that there was strong support for the pardons from the public and elected officials. The pardons are one of several the US president has granted to American service personnel and contractors accused or convicted of crimes against non-combatants and civilians in war zones. The Beginning Blackwater USA began in 1997 by Al Clark and Erik Prince. Russias reluctant and delayed military intervention in Ukraine is fundamentally a war of power projection, a shot across the bow to perfidious former allies, the East European states, whove been joining the EU and NATO in droves since the break-up of Soviet Union in 1991, that the collective security of Eurasian nations is a shared responsibility, and NATOs eastward expansion along Russias western flank not only imperils the security of resurgent Russia but also compromises the balance of power in the multipolar world. Again, I knew my clients would be pleased to know that justice had been served and their rights had been protected. Nassar Hamza was 67 years old when he was shot and wounded in the arm. "I don't know what I did to Blackwater," Kinani told ABC News. Associated Press WASHINGTON Four former Blackwater Worldwide security guards were convicted and immediately jailed Wednesday for their roles in a deadly 2007 shooting in Baghdad's Nisour Square. [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". Sequence of events triggering the Nisour Square massacre, Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, Private Security Company Association of Iraq, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security, Inspector General of the U.S. State Department, United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, "U.S. Pepe Escobar (@RealPepeEscobar) March 1, 2022. What Is Blackwater? "On what basis did Trump depend on to release 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. The US government said in a memorandum filed after the sentencing: None of the victims was an insurgent, or posed any threat to the Raven 23 convoy. The memorandum also contained quotations from relatives of the dead, including Mohammad Kinani, whose nine-year-old son Ali was killed. Sarah Holewinski, Washington director at Human Rights Watch, said Trump's pardons were an insult to justice, "but it's also an insult to the victims. [54] He received an honorable discharge in 2002 and then enlisted in the Texas National Guard. Extending the hand of friendship, Russia significantly drawdown its forces along the western border before the summit last year. The Associated Press contributed to this report. ", Human Rights Watch says the pardons "show contempt for the rule of law.". 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. The White House further stated that the Court of Appeals "ruled that additional evidence should have been presented at Mr Slatten's trial", and recently that prosecutors said "that the lead Iraqi investigator, who prosecutors relied heavily on to verify that there were no insurgent victims and to collect evidence, may have had ties to insurgent groups himself". "[32] According to Blackwater vice-president Marty Strong, the convoy was hit with "a large explosive device" and "repeated small arms fire" which disabled a vehicle. The Nisour Square massacre was one of the most prominent events of the US-Iraq conflict, raising doubts about America's true intentions in the region. More than 3,000 troops remain in Iraq, according to defense officials, with a drawdown scheduled for January. [95][96] Heard, Liberty, and Slough were resentenced on September 5, 2019 to terms approximately half the original 30-year periods. [34], In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, Blackwater's rights to conduct work in Iraq were temporarily suspended. 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. [48] According to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice promised a "fair and transparent" investigation into the incident. 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. 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 . [26][27], On September 27, 2007, The New York Times reported that during the chaotic incident at Nisour Square, one member of the Blackwater security team continued to fire on civilians despite urgent cease-fire calls from colleagues. 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. She turned the location into an exotic bookstore and caf, offering erotica readings, among other licentious pastimes. How is Eric Prince still breathing? 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. Then one of his sisters children said that Ali was hurt. courts. It remains unclear whether the team member mistook the civilians for insurgents. In fact, private military contractors in close coordination and consultation with covert operators from CIA and Western intelligence agencies are not only training Ukraines conscript forces in the use of caches of Stingers and Javelins provided by Germany and the rest of the European nations as military assistance to Ukraine but are also directing the whole defense strategy of Ukraine by taking an active part in combat operations in some of the most hard-fought battles against Russias security forces north of Kyiv and at Kharkiv and Donbas. [49], An Interior Ministry spokesman said Iraqi authorities had completed their investigation into the shooting and concluded that Blackwater guards were responsible for the deaths. More were arriving in the backs of trucks. But he knew he was surviving as he kept yelling for the children in the back of his SUV to stay down. [47], The U.S. State Department said it planned to investigate what it called a "terrible incident". ", "By investigating these crimes and completing legal proceedings, the US complied with its obligations under international law," she added. . Three former employees of the US private military contractor once known as Blackwater were sentenced to 30 years in prison on Monday and a fourth received a life sentence . "Pardoning the Blackwater contractors is an affront to justice and to the victims of the Nisour Square massacre and their families," said Jelena Aparac, Chair . No wonder Russia formally issued an ultimatum on Tuesday, March 1, that it would target the hub of covert warfare. This includes the right to see perpetrators serve punishments proportionate to the seriousness of their conduct. The Blackwater incident cost the American military in the Middle East a lot more, experts interviewed by RT believe. Dickinson says the great expense that the FBI put into the prosecution of the case has now come to nothing. 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. Justice Blackwater mercenary sentenced to life in prison On Wednesday, Slatten was sentenced to life in federal prison for initiating a massacre that left 14 Iraqi civilians dead. Defense lawyers for the four veterans, who were working as contractors for the State Department at the time of the killings, argued that they had returned fire only after being ambushed by Iraqi insurgents. I know that each of them placed great faith in the U.S. legal system. In this 2007 video, witnesses shed light on the killing of 17 Iraqis by American contractors in Baghdad.Read the article here: http://nyti.ms/1u1cNzySubscrib. [24] The driver of the Kia was shot once in the head by a Blackwater contractor and was killed. Russian Forces strike Ukrainian Armys Electronic Intelligence Center in Kiev Region. [6][85][86] Jurors sided with prosecutors' contention that the shooting was a criminal act, not a battlefield encounter gone wrong. The traffic circle, Nisour Square, was only a block away from one of the main entrance gates to Baghdads Green Zone. Ukraine War Anniversary: UN and China Work for Peace, Devilish Zelensky, Kiev Hid Its Dead Soldiers in the Ravines. He was shot through the back with a massive exit wound in his chest. His sister was safe. By Andrew Emett - August 16, 2019 1269 SOURCE NationofChange 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. "With those sentences reversed by the stroke of a pen, who will trust the American justice system again?". [89][90][91] The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit's fractured per curiam decision first found that Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act authorized the prosecutions, over the partial dissent of Judge Janice Rogers Brown. ", "After years of waiting, the victims finally saw justice served when these men were convicted," she said in an email. The Nisour Square massacre was the FBI's most comprehensive and expensive criminal investigation since 9/11. [36] Several Iraqi and American investigations have been conducted into the incident. Being so close to the Green Zone, he thought someone important might be entering or leaving the area. Mohammed was glad Saddams reign of terror was finally ending. [54], Radio logs released in December 2008 seemed to affirm that the guards had been responding to an attack on September 16. U.S. military reports appear to corroborate the Iraqi government's contention that Blackwater was at fault in the incident. A 20,000-strong mercenary army is being assembled in Poland. Contractor Banned by Iraq Over Shootings", "F.B.I. He is a regular contributor of diligently researched investigative reports to alternative news media. [19] According to this account, the security team fired warning shots and then lethal fire at the Kia. [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. He received poor treatment because his injuries were less life threatening, but he was left with a disfigured and useless arm. An Iraqi policeman went over to the car, possibly to help the passenger, but the vehicle kept moving and it looked to the guards as if the policeman was pushing the car towards the Blackwater TST. 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 . The 14 victims killed by the Blackwater guards on trial were listed as Ahmed Haithem Ahmed Al Rubiay, Mahassin Mohssen Kadhum Al-Khazali, Osama Fadhil Abbas, Ali Mohammed Hafedh Abdul Razzaq, Mohamed Abbas Mahmoud, Qasim Mohamed Abbas Mahmoud, Saadi Ali Abbas Alkarkh, Mushtaq Karim Abd Al-Razzaq, Ghaniyah Hassan Ali, Ibrahim Abid Ayash, Hamoud Saeed Abttan, Uday Ismail Ibrahiem, Mahdi Sahib Nasir and Ali Khalil Abdul Hussein. [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. Again be warned it is ugly. He was shot in the abdomen. 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. 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. I was thinking the same thing about the Chechens a few days ago. The Blackwater mercenaries were among the most flagrant killers in Iraq but hardly unique. 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. Before. Before VT Nuclear Education: The Beirut Nuclear Coverup, The Hidden History of the Incredibly Evil Khazarian Mafia. But supporters of the military contractors, who argued the investigation was tainted and the punishments too severe, cheered the news. He was left with shrapnel in his body from the rocket launched grenade that was fired into his vehicle as he escaped. [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. [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 Blackwater guards appeared to have fired grenade launchers in addition to machine guns, according to the report. The only way these men could be brought to justice was in the United States. [2] Reactions [ edit] Prosecutors asserted the heavily armed Raven 23 Blackwater convoy launched an unprovoked attack using sniper fire, machine-guns and grenade launchers. [54] He served one tour in Iraq before being hired as a Personal Security Specialist in Iraq. 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. A former private military guard has been convicted of first degree murder by a court in Washington after taking part in a mass killing of unarmed civilians in Baghdad in 2007. "How are. [45] Also, it is not clear whether the license revocation is permanent. Blackwater has been renamed and falls under the Constellis group of companies, a risk management business formed in 2010. "I consider what the security company personnel have done is a terrorist act, as many civilians were martyred and wounded," said Hashem, 41, a father of five who was partially disabled and forced to retire after the incident. [37][38] The incident caused Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to call on the U.S. government to end its contract with Blackwater USA,[39] and for the Iraqi government to push for an apology, compensation for victims or their families and for the guards involved in the shooting to be held "accountable". Among his clients were the parents of a 9-year-old boy who was killed as he sat in the back of his father's car. 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. It was chaotic. 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. Raven 23 "returned defensive fire" and withdrew from Nisour Square with one of its BearCat vehicles in tow. [19] The three justifiable killings were those of the two passengers in the white Kia sedan and an unidentified Iraqi nearby. WaPo says, 'Investigators for the military and the FBI later described . [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. The news shows the helicopter falling to the ground as it burns. And afterward, Iraqi citizens wanted to ensure that those who had done this were held responsible. Those Warnings Were Ignored, How Russia Will Counterpunch U.S./EU Declaration of War, Khazarian Mafia at War: The Jewish Oligarch Who Planned the Terror Attack on Bryansk, Covert Operations In Vietnam: The Incomplete History of US-Norway Collaboration. [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. 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. [18][30] Iraqi investigators also alleged that Blackwater helicopters fired into the cars from the air, as at least one car had bullet holes in its roof; Blackwater has denied any of its aerial units discharged weapons. [16] The FBI investigation found that, of the 17 Iraqis killed by the guards, at least 14 were shot without cause. [93], On December 19, 2018, Slatten was found guilty of murder[94] and again was sentenced to life in prison on August 14, 2019. Because any state, particularly those pursuing socialist policies, that dares to challenge the Western monopoly over global trade and economic policies is internationally isolated and its national economy goes bankrupt over a period of time. Mohammed was a businessman dealing in auto salvage. [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. [12] The U.S. State Department has said that "innocent life was lost",[13] and according to The Washington Post, a military report appeared to corroborate "the Iraqi government's contention that Blackwater was at fault".
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