[2] 16,000 volunteers coming to Ukraine, Zelensky: https://www.rt.com/russia/551149-zelensky-ukraine-foreign-fighters/. The aide also said that the Iraqi government was pushing for an apology, compensation for victims or their families and for the guards involved in the shooting to be held "accountable". Dozens of witnesses were brought to the United States to testify about what happened on September 16, 2007. They claimed they were fired on, but prosecutors said the Blackwater guards opened fire first. [81] A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found "systemic" errors in the district court's 2009 decision to dismiss charges against the five former Blackwater guards and added "We find that the district court's findings depend on an erroneous view of the law". Mahde Shamke was 25 years old and driving a taxi to support his parents and siblings. On Tuesday, President Trump pardoned 15 people, including Dustin Heard (from left), Evan Liberty, Nicholas Slatten and Paul Slough, the four former government contractors convicted for a 2007 massacre in Baghdad that left more than a dozen Iraqi civilians dead. Depicting a doomsday scenario in order to malign Russias calculated offensive in Ukraine to minimize collateral damage, mainstream reporting focused today on thefire that broke out [1] at Zaporizhzhia plant, one of Europes largest nuclear power plants situated 550 km southeast of Kyiv. Also quoted in the memorandum was David Boslego, a retired US army colonel, who said the massacre was a grossly excessive use of force and grossly inappropriate for an entity whose only job was to provide personal protection to somebody in an armoured vehicle. 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. After selling Blackwater to a group of investors in 2010, Erik Prince, a former US Navy Seals officer and the swashbuckling founder of Blackwater, has founded another security company Frontier Services Group, registered at Hong Kong Stock Exchange, that advises and provides aviation and logistical solutions to Chinese oligarchs for the security of their lucrative business projects in Africa. Russian Forces strike Ukrainian Armys Electronic Intelligence Center in Kiev Region. [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. [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. [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. Prosecutors argued the men did not face hostile gunfire when they began shooting, and continued to shoot despite the lack of threats. 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. They left in 2011 but returned in 2014 after the Islamic State militant group overran large parts of the country. [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". Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) - On Tuesday, Trump the Mad pardoned 4 Blackwater mercenaries who killed 14 Iraqi civilians, including a nine-year-old boy, with indiscriminate fire at Nisour Square in downtown Baghdad on September 14, 2007. That day destroyed me completely, Kinani said. Four Blackwater security guards convicted in 2014 of carrying out a massacre of Iraqi civilians, sparking an international outcry over the use of mercenaries in war . 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. [54], Radio logs released in December 2008 seemed to affirm that the guards had been responding to an attack on September 16. 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. I am overwhelmed with emotion at this fantastic news.. [38] Waxman stated that "the controversy over Blackwater is an unfortunate demonstration of the perils of excessive reliance on private security contractors. Not a one! [19] According to this account, the security team fired warning shots and then lethal fire at the Kia. The Blackwater incident cost the American military in the Middle East a lot more, experts interviewed by RT believe. courts. Each step of the way, the U.S. legal system ensured that these men were given fair and just prosecutions. Suddenly, bullets began to riddle Mohammeds car. It is unfortunate and sad that those efforts have now been wasted. "[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. [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. The four guards Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard and Nicholas Slatten were part of an armoured convoy that opened fire indiscriminately with machine-guns, grenade launchers and a sniper on a crowd of unarmed people in a square in the Iraqi capital. There are numerous reported incidents of mass murder conducted by US soldiers, special forces. They would turn Blackwater into roadkill. Supporters of the former contractors at Blackwater Worldwide had lobbied for the pardons, arguing that the men had been excessively punished. The Blackwater guards appeared to have fired grenade launchers in addition to machine guns, according to the report. He thought they had been given a miracle after he saw so many others killed. [95][96] Heard, Liberty, and Slough were resentenced on September 5, 2019 to terms approximately half the original 30-year periods. 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. A burnt car at the site where Blackwater guards opened fire on a crowd in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2007. Before VT Nuclear Education: The Beirut Nuclear Coverup, The Hidden History of the Incredibly Evil Khazarian Mafia. The result is not just that we see an injustice in the United States, but that the world must surely see cracks in the pillars of justice upon which our system is based. ", "After years of waiting, the victims finally saw justice served when these men were convicted," she said in an email. When he arrived at the hospital, it was a war zone. [10][11] The next day, Blackwater Worldwide's license to operate in Iraq was temporarily revoked. No wonder Russia formally issued an ultimatum on Tuesday, March 1, that it would target the hub of covert warfare. Blackwater was founded by Erik Prince, whose sister, Betsy DeVos, was appointed Trumps education secretary. I felt I had done that, and I knew the prosecutors were doing that. Blackwater mercenaries committed a massacre. Their belief in our legal system was misplaced. [57], In October 2007, the United Nations released a two-year study that stated that private contractors, although hired as "security guards", were performing military duties. The Nisour Square massacre was the FBIs most comprehensive and expensive criminal investigation since 9/11. By signing up, I agree to receive emails from The Intercept and to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. 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 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 Associated Press contributed to this report. 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. "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 . Mohammed kept seeing the man on the ground next to him being fired upon as he lay dead. Machine gunfire tore through his body. And none of the I.P. His domains of expertise include neocolonialism, military-industrial complex, and petro-imperialism. 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 . Survivors and victims' relatives of a 2007 shooting in Iraq by Blackwater contractors meet with United States prosecutors in Baghdad in 2008. [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. 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. 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. 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. The My Lai massacre took place on 16 March 1968. As he was leaving, his youngest son, who was affectionately given the nickname Alawi, asked to go with his father. [56], On April 1, 2011, the Associated Press reported on Erik Prince's seven-hour testimony about what allegedly transpired. [37] A senior aide to al-Maliki said that three of the Blackwater guards were Iraqis and could be subject to prosecution. [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. 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. Dickinson says the great expense that the FBI put into the prosecution of the case has now come to nothing. It wasnt. The Nisour Square massacre was one of the lowest episodes of the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq. He was shot while seated in a public bus. The hospital was too busy. [55], On April 1, 2009, the Associated Press reported that forensic tests on bullets were inconclusive. They beat citizens and scorn them. "It was obviously excessive", a U.S. military official speaking on condition of anonymity told the Washington Post. 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. 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. First ones from 16,000. [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. But he knew he was surviving as he kept yelling for the children in the back of his SUV to stay down. ", 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. Joining is simple and doesnt need to cost a lot: You can become a sustaining member for as little as $3 or $5 a month. He never received treatment. 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. He was shot through the back with a massive exit wound in his chest. Although NATO powers did provide Stingers to their jihadist proxies that helped turn the tide in the Soviet-Afghan war in the eighties, since then, despite providing anti-tank munitions and rest of weapons to militant groups during the proxy wars in Libya and Syria, Western powers have consistently avoided providing MANPADS to proxy forces, because such deadly anti-aircraft munitions could become a long-term threat not only to military aircraft but also to civilian airlines. "Pardoning them contributes to impunity and has the effect of emboldening others to commit such crimes in the future. 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. By Andrew Emett - August 16, 2019 1269 SOURCE NationofChange [77] "Prosecutors should therefore have built their case against the men without them", a BBC report explained. The logs depicted "a hectic eight minutes in which the guards repeatedly reported incoming gunfire from insurgents and Iraqi police". It looks at the rise of private security contractors such as Blackwater in the era of modern warfare. More than 3,000 troops remain in Iraq, according to defense officials, with a drawdown scheduled for January. Majid survived because he was on the passenger side of the car and was protected from most of the barrage of bullets. American troops invaded Iraq in 2003 and toppled Saddam Hussein's regime. 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. 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. [19] The three justifiable killings were those of the two passengers in the white Kia sedan and an unidentified Iraqi nearby. Blackwater Mercenaries Filmed on a Rampage in Iraq & Shooting Civilians from WarPosting After being leaked by a former employee of the notorious PMC, the footage dated April 2006 was featured in a piece called "The Warrior Class" by Charles Glass. "Victims of gross human rights violations and serious violations of international humanitarian law also have the right to a remedy. Luckily, before his SUV was attacked, Mohammed, his sister, and their children had time to duck into the car. Mohammed quickly got out of the car and saw blood inside the rear window. The hallways were full. 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. 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. When Blackwater security guard Nicholas Slatten was tried and convicted for murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, the U.S. legal system determined that he needed a new trial. [46] On September 21, CNN reported that Blackwater would resume normal operations the following day. Mohammed turned his bullet-riddled SUV around and drove back to the closest hospital only a few blocks behind him. security contractors who had previously been sentenced over the death of 17 Iraqi civilians in the 2007 Nisur Square massacre . 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. The Intercept is an independent nonprofit news outlet. 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.
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