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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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October 14th,
2009 - Judge Blocks Public From Blackwater Hearings |
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Judge Blocks
Public From Blackwater Hearings By Del Quentin Wilber Washington Post October 14, 2009 A federal judge Wednesday
blocked the public from attending a critical set of pretrial hearings in the
prosecution of five U.S. security contractors accused of killing 14 unarmed
Iraqi civilians in a 2007 shooting. The hearings, which are
expected to last through Friday of next week, will examine whether the
government improperly used immunized statements by the Blackwater Worldwide
security guards in its investigation. The guards gave the statements to the
State Department shortly after the controversial shooting Sept. 16, 2007, in
a busy Baghdad square. U.S. District Judge Ricardo
M. Urbina said Wednesday that he was closing the hearings because he wanted
to shield witnesses and potential jurors from pretrial publicity. He also
cited concerns about the disclosure of grand jury material. Urbina said he wanted
to ensure the guards received a fair trial. The hearings in the
District's federal court were not listed on the public docket and pleadings
filed by prosecutors and defense lawyers over the immunity issue have been
sealed. A Washington Post reporter learned about the hearings several weeks
ago and was told they would be open to the public. Last week, a court clerk
told The Post that Urbina intended to close the hearings. On the courtroom
wall, the docket listed only a "sealed" matter as taking place Wednesday
in Urbina's courtroom. In a letter Tuesday, The
Post asked Urbina to reconsider closing the proceedings. Washington Post
attorney James A. McLaughlin said that the court should have put the
proceedings on the public docket and given the public an earlier chance to
challenge the basis for closure of the hearings. He said concerns about the
impact of pretrial publicity were "highly speculative" unless
supported by factual findings in open court. At a brief hearing
Wednesday, Urbina denied The Post's request to open the hearings. He said the
rights of the five guards to a fair trial outweighed the public's interest in
attending the proceedings. He said he was concerned about how press accounts
of the guards' immunized statements might affect witnesses, some as far away
as Baghdad. The judge added that he did
not see a way to partially open the hearings because they will deal heavily
with grand jury information. Grand jury proceedings are generally kept
secret. The judge said the court
would work harder to ensure that future hearings were placed on the public
docket. The five guards - Paul
Slough, Nicholas Slatten, Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard and Donald Ball - are
charged with voluntary manslaughter and weapons violations in the killing of
14 civilians and the wounding 20 others. The Justice Department alleges that
the guards unleashed an unprovoked attack on Iraqi civilians in Nisoor Square
while in a convoy. One guard, Jeremy P. Ridgeway, has pleaded guilty and is
expected to testify against the others. Blackwater, which has since
renamed itself Xe, had a contract to provide security for the State
Department in Iraq. The charges were brought
under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, which allows U.S.
prosecutors to charge American service members, their family members and
those employed by the military for illegal acts committed overseas. The Justice Department's
investigation has been complicated by many factors. FBI agents have required
tight security while trying to find witnesses and gathering forensic evidence
in Baghdad. Agents and prosecutors were
also barred from gleaning any information from immunized statements the
guards gave to officials with the State Department' Bureau of Diplomatic
Security. When officials took the statements from the guards, the State
Department was under pressure to quickly assess what happened in the
controversial shooting. The proceedings underway in
the District's federal court, known as Kastigar hearings, will probe how well
investigators gathered evidence without being tainted by those immunized
statements. If the judge finds the government's case is tainted, he might be
forced to throw out the indictment. © 2009 The Washington Post
Company External link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/14/AR2009101401956.html |