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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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November 26th,
2009 - Lawyers: Government Misconduct in Blackwater Case |
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Lawyers: Government
Misconduct in Blackwater Case By Pete Yost Associated Press November 26, 2009 Washington - Defense lawyers
are alleging misconduct by Justice Department prosecutors in the case against
one of five Blackwater security guards accused in the killings of 17 Iraqis
in Baghdad. Recent pretrial proceedings
that took place behind closed doors led the Justice Department to seek
dismissal of charges against Nicholas Slatten of Sparta, Tenn., one of the
five guards accused in the shootings in busy Nisoor Square in September 2007. In a one-paragraph filing a
week ago, the department disclosed that it wants to preserve the possibility
of filing a new set of charges against Slatten. On Wednesday, Slatten's
lawyers said in court papers they want to stop the Justice Department from
doing so and that the issue should be aired in a public court hearing. The recent secret hearings
focused on whether statements some of the guards gave to the State Department
after the killings in Baghdad under a grant of immunity tainted the
government's subsequent criminal case. U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina has
yet to rule. In its court filing
Wednesday, Slatten's defense team called the U.S. government's handling of
the charges against Slatten "a disturbing case of prosecutorial
misconduct, undermining the integrity of the judicial process." The case against Slatten
became untenable, not merely because of a fundamental lack of evidence
against him, but also because the trial team repeatedly mischaracterized the
testimony of witnesses and excluded evidence that ran in Slatten's favor from
the grand jury that indicted him, Slatten's lawyers wrote in asking for a
public hearing before the judge. "The collapse of the
government's case against Mr. Slatten should be as public as the baseless
allegations against him," Slatten's lawyers added. "He should not
be required to endure the government's repeated public mischaracterization of
the evidence while non-public proceedings tell a very different story." In a court filing late
Wednesday, the Justice Department declined to comment on the substance of the
defense allegations. The department said only that the allegations involve
what transpired at the recent closed court hearings. The prosecutors said
Slatten's lawyers had acted inappropriately by putting their court papers on
the public record and the Justice Department asked Urbina to disregard
Slatten's motion for a hearing. Slatten was an Army sniper
who served two tours in Iraq before joining Blackwater. Since the shooting,
Blackwater, headquartered in Moyock, N.C., has renamed itself Xe Corp. and
has undergone management changes. The case against the guards
is set for trial in February. Prosecutors were aggressive in their charges,
using an anti-machine gun law to attach 30-year mandatory prison sentences to
the case. And though authorities can't say for sure exactly which guards shot
which victims, all five guards are charged with 14 counts of manslaughter. Copyright © 2009 The
Associated Press. External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gEkqkbr5Pndf7Tzj86eSqaSbPHSAD9C79K601 |