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January 1st,
2010 - Iraq Dismayed by Blackwater Dismissal News article from the Associated
Press |
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Iraq Dismayed by Blackwater
Dismissal By Matt Apuzzo Associated Press January 1, 2010 A federal judge cited
repeated government missteps in dismissing all charges against five
Blackwater Worldwide security guards accused of killing unarmed Iraqi
civilians in a case that inflamed anti-American sentiment abroad. U.S. District Judge Ricardo
Urbina dismissed the case against the guards accused of the shooting in a
crowded Baghdad intersection in 2007. The shooting in busy Nisoor
Square left 17 Iraqis dead. The Iraqi government wanted the guards to face
trial in Iraq and officials there said they would closely watch how the U.S.
judicial system handled the case. Urbina said the prosecutors
ignored the advice of senior Justice Department officials and built their
case on sworn statements that had been given under a promise of immunity.
Urbina said that violated the guards' constitutional rights. He dismissed the
government's explanations as "contradictory, unbelievable and lacking in
credibility." "We're obviously
disappointed by the decision," Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd
said. "We're still in the process of reviewing the opinion and
considering our options." Prosecutors can appeal the
ruling. Ali al-Dabagh, the Iraqi
government spokesman, said in a statement Friday that the government was
dismayed by the court's dismissal of the case. "The Iraqi government
regrets the decision," he said. "Investigations conducted by
specialized Iraqi authorities confirmed unequivocally that the guards of
Blackwater committed the crime of murder and broke the rules by using arms
without the existence of any threat obliging them to use force." "The Iraqi government
will follow up its procedures strictly and firmly to pursue the criminals of
the above named company and to preserve the rights of the Iraqi citizens who
were victims or the families who suffered losses from this crime." Dr. Haitham Ahmed, whose
wife and son were killed in the shooting, said the decision casts doubt on
the integrity of the entire U.S. justice system. "If a judge ...
dismissed the trial, that is ridiculous and the whole thing has been but a
farce," Ahmed said. "The rights of our victims and the rights of
the innocent people should not be wasted." Dozens of Iraqis, including
the estates of some of the victims allegedly killed by Blackwater employees,
filed a separate lawsuit last year alleging that Blackwater employees engaged
in indiscriminate killings and beatings. The civil case is still before a
Virginia court. Blackwater contractors had
been hired to guard U.S. diplomats in Iraq. The guards said insurgents
ambushed them in a traffic circle. Prosecutors said the men unleashed an
unprovoked attack on civilians using machine guns and grenades. The shooting led to the
unraveling of the North Carolina-based company, which since has replaced its
management and changed its name to Xe Services. The five guards are Donald
Ball, a former Marine from West Valley City, Utah; Dustin Heard, a former
Marine from Knoxville, Tenn.; Evan Liberty, a former Marine from Rochester,
N.H.; Nick Slatten, a former Army sergeant from Sparta, Tenn., and Paul
Slough, an Army veteran from Keller, Texas. Defense attorneys said the
guards were thrilled by the ruling after more than two years of scrutiny. "It's tremendously
gratifying to see the court allow us to celebrate the new year the way it
has," said attorney Bill Coffield, who represents Liberty. "It
really invigorates your belief in our court system." "It's
indescribable," said Ball's attorney, Steven McCool. "It feels like
the weight of the world has been lifted off his shoulders. Here's a guy
that's a decorated war hero who we maintain should never have been charged in
the first place." The five guards had been
charged with manslaughter and weapons violations. The charges carried
mandatory 30-year prison terms. Urbina's ruling does not
resolve whether the shooting was proper. Rather, the 90-page opinion
underscores some of the conflicting evidence in the case. Some Blackwater
guards told prosecutors they were concerned about the shooting and offered to
cooperate. Others said the convoy had been attacked. By the time the FBI
began investigating, Nisoor Square had been picked clean of bullets that
might have proven whether there had been a firefight or a massacre. The Iraqi government has
refused to grant Blackwater a license to continue operating in the country,
prompting the State Department to refuse to renew its contracts with the
company. In a statement released by
its president, Joseph Yorio, the company said it was happy to have the
shooting behind it. "Like the people they
were protecting, our Xe professionals were working for a free, safe and
democratic Iraq for the Iraqi people," Yorio said. "With this
decision, we feel we can move forward and continue to assist the United
States in its mission to help the people of Iraq and Afghanistan find a
peaceful, democratic future." The top U.S. commander in
Iraq, Gen. Raymond Odierno, declined to comment on the specifics of the case,
but said, "I do worry about it, because clearly there were innocent
people killed in that attack ... it is heart-wrenching." The case against the five
men fell apart because, after the shooting, the State Department ordered the
guards to explain what happened. In exchange for those statements, the State
Department promised the statements would not be used in a criminal case. Such
limited immunity deals are common in police departments so officers involved
in shootings cannot hold up internal investigations by refusing to cooperate. The five guards told
investigators they fired their weapons, an admission that was crucial because
forensic evidence could not determine who had fired. Because of the immunity
deal, prosecutors had to build their case without those statements, a high
legal hurdle that Urbina said the Justice Department failed to clear.
Prosecutors read those statements, reviewed them in the investigation and
used them to question witnesses and get search warrants, Urbina said. Key
witnesses also reviewed the statements and the grand jury heard evidence that
had been tainted by those statements, the judge said. The Justice Department set
up a process to avoid those problems, but Urbina said lead prosecutor Ken
Kohl and others "purposefully flouted the advice" of senior Justice
Department officials telling them not to use the statements. It was unclear what the
ruling means for a sixth Blackwater guard, Jeremy Ridgeway, who turned on his
former colleagues and pleaded guilty to killing one Iraqi and wounding
another. Had he gone to trial, the case against him would likely have fallen
apart, but it's unclear whether Urbina will let him out of his plea deal. By Associated Press Writer
Matt Apuzzo; AP Writers Bushra Juhi and Rebecca Santana in Baghdad
contributed to this report. © MMX The Associated Press. External link: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/01/01/world/main6044525.shtml Iraq criticizes dismissal of
charges in Blackwater shootings From Cable News Network January 1, 2010 Baghdad, Iraq - The Iraqi
government on Friday criticized the dismissal of charges against five
Blackwater security guards, saying they murdered 17 innocent civilians. An Iraqi man who was wounded
in the same 2007 incident said the U.S. federal judge's dismissal of
manslaughter charges showed "disregard for Iraqi blood." U.S. District Judge Ricardo
Urbina found Thursday that prosecutors wrongly used the guards' own statements
against them. "The Iraqi government
regrets the U.S. federal judge's decision to drop the charges against the
Blackwater security guards who caused the death of 17 innocent Iraqi
civilians in Nusour Square on September 16th, 2007," Iraqi government
spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Friday. Al-Dabbagh added that
"investigations carried out by specialized Iraqi authorities
unequivocally found that the Blackwater guards committed murder and broke
use-of-force rules when there was no threat requiring the use of force." The bloodbath in Baghdad's
Nusour Square, which also left two dozen wounded, led Iraq's government to
place limits on security contractors hired by Blackwater, now known as Xe,
and other firms. Among the wounded was Hassan
Jaber Salman, a lawyer. "It was a big
disappointment when we heard about dropping the charges against the five
Blackwater contractors," Salman said. "We were expecting that
American justice system is fair and independent. It's clear that the justice
system in America is unjust and unfair. What happened is disregard for Iraqi
blood." Urbina found that the
government's case was built largely on "statements compelled under a
threat of job loss" during a State Department investigation of the
shootings, violating the Fifth Amendment rights of the five men charged. "In their zeal to bring
charges against the defendant in this case, the prosecutors and investigators
aggressively sought out statements the defendants had been compelled to make
to government investigators in the immediate aftermath of the shooting and in
the subsequent investigation," Urbina wrote in a 90-page decision. Federal prosecutors
"repeatedly disregarded the warnings of experienced, senior prosecutors
assigned to the case," the judge said. In the ruling, which
followed three weeks of hearings, Urbina said the explanations prosecutors
and federal agents offered for using the guards' statements were "all
too often contradictory, unbelievable and lacking in credibility." "In short, the
government has utterly failed to prove that it made no impermissible use of
the defendants' statements or that such use was harmless beyond a reasonable
doubt," he wrote. There was no immediate
response to the decision from the Justice Department, which can appeal the
ruling or seek new indictments against the men. The men were guarding a
State Department convoy moving through western Baghdad when the shooting
began. The company said its contractors came under attack, but Iraqi
authorities called the gunfire unprovoked and indiscriminate. Each of the now-former
guards - Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard, Donald Ball and Nicholas
Slatten - faced 14 counts of manslaughter, 20 counts of attempted
manslaughter and one count of using a firearm in the commission of a violent
crime. Prosecutors requested that charges against Slatten be dropped in
November, but Thursday's ruling dismissed the counts against all five. "We're obviously
pleased at the decision dismissing the entire indictment and are very happy
that these courageous young men can begin the new year without this unfair
cloud hanging over them," said Slough's lawyer, Mark Hulkower. A sixth guard involved in
the shootings, Jeremy Ridgeway, pleaded guilty in 2008 to voluntary
manslaughter and attempted manslaughter. CNN's Jomana Karadsheh and
Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report. © 2009 Cable News Network. External link: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/01/01/iraq.blackwater.charges/ Iraq ‘to appeal Blackwater
verdict’ From Al Jazeera January 1, 2010 The Iraqi government will
push to appeal a US court ruling dismissing charges of murder against five
security guards of the private Blackwater firm, an official has told Al
Jazeera. Saad al-Muttalibi, an
adviser to the Iraqi council of ministers, said on Friday that if the guards
did not receive a just sentence for the killing of 14 Iraqis in 2007, the
issue would complicate relations between Iraq and the United States. "This matter will be
appealed in the American court and if not resolved correctly, this will
definitely add another strain on the relationship between Iraq and the United
States," he said. "The legality or the
procedures of the court case should not stop the criminals from facing
justice and receiving a just sentence. "This is very bad ...
for the overall look of the United States outside its borders. It's very
important for the Americans to realise that this will work against their
interests in Iraq and other places." Ali al-Dabbagh, the Iraqi
government spokesman, said in a statement: "The Iraqi government will
follow up on this issue in strength and resolution to bring those murderers
of Blackwater to accountability in order to return the rights of iraqi people
who are the victims of this crime." He said "the
investigations carried out by the specialised Iraqi authorities confirmed
with no doubt that the guards of Blackwater company have committed a criminal
murder act and they have violated the combat environment rule to use force
while there was no threat against them". Promise of immunity Ricardo Urbina, a district
judge, dismissed the charges against the five men on Thursday, saying US
justice department prosecutors improperly built their case on sworn
statements that had been given under a promise of immunity. Urbina said the government's
explanations were "contradictory, unbelievable and lacking in
credibility". The September 2007 shooting
in Baghdad's busy Nisour Square left at least 14 Iraqis dead and inflamed
anti-American sentiment abroad. The Iraqi government wanted
the guards to stand trial in Iraq and officials there said they would closely
watch how the US judicial system handled the case. Dean Boyd, a spokesman for
the US justice department, said the department was "obviously disappointed
by the decision". Prosecutors can appeal the
90-page ruling and Boyd said the department was "still in the process of
reviewing the opinion and considering our options". Al Jazeera's Rosiland Jordan
explained that the judge did say that the case can be brought back to court
without prejudice but it was going to be difficult for the justice department
to build the case from scratch without using the defendants' statements. Contract extended Blackwater Worldwide, which
had been hired to guard US diplomats in Iraq at the time, has since changed
its management and name to Xe Services. Despite a string of
investigations following the deadly shooting and in spite of an Iraqi
government ban on the company, the US state department extended a contract
with a subsidiary of the firm in September to continue providing security to
US diplomats in the country. The five guards, Donald
Ball, Dustin Heard, Evan Liberty, Nick Slatten and Paul Slough, all formerly
in the US military, had been charged with manslaughter and weapons charges,
which carried mandatory 30-year prison terms. It was unclear what the
ruling means for a sixth Blackwater guard, Jeremy Ridgeway, who had pleaded
guilty to killing one Iraqi and wounding another. Defence lawyers said the
guards were thrilled by the ruling after more than two years of scrutiny. "It's tremendously
gratifying to see the court allow us to celebrate the New Year the way it has,"
said lawyer Bill Coffield, who represents Liberty. "It really invigorates
your belief in our court system." Ball's lawyer, Steven
McCool, said "it feels like the weight of the world has been lifted
off" his client's shoulders". "Here's a guy that's a
decorated war hero who we maintain should never have been charged in the
first place," he added. Urbina's ruling does not say
whether the shooting was proper, only that the government improperly used
evidence to build the case. ‘Self-defence’ The guards claimed to have
acted in self-defence after a convoy they were protecting near Nisour Square
came under attack. Witnesses, however, said the
men unleashed an unprovoked attack on civilians using machine guns and
grenades. After the shooting, the US
state department had ordered the guards to explain what happened. Investigators promised the
men that their statements were to be used only for the internal inquiry and
would not be used in a criminal case. Such limited immunity deals are
common in police departments so officers involved in shootings cannot hold up
internal investigations by refusing to co-operate. The deal meant that
prosecutors had to build their case without using those statements, something
Urbina said the justice department failed to do. Prosecutors read those
statements, reviewed them in the investigation and used them to get search
warrants, Urbina said. External link: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/01/201011101136634433.html Judge throws
out Blackwater guards’ charges in Iraqi deaths The private contractors are accused of killing 17 unarmed civilians in
Baghdad in a 2007 case that sparked an outcry. A judge says using statements
from the Americans was a violation of their rights. By David G. Savage Los Angeles Times January 1, 2010 Reporting from Washington - A
federal judge in Washington on Thursday dismissed criminal charges against
five Blackwater security guards accused of killing 17 unarmed Iraqi civilians
in an incident that strained U.S.-Iraqi relations and sparked an outcry over
the military's use of private contractors. The judge did not rule on
the substance of the charges against the security guards, but instead decided
that prosecutors had wrongly relied on what the guards told State Department
investigators shortly after the incident. As government contractors, the
Blackwater employees were required to speak to an investigator after a
shooting. U.S. District Judge Ricardo
Urbina said that the use of these statements - which were given with a
promise of immunity - violated the defendants' rights against compelled
self-incrimination. "In their zeal to bring
charges against the defendants ... the government used compelled statements
to guide its charging decisions ... and ultimately, to obtain the indictment
in this case," the judge wrote in a 90-page opinion. The efforts of prosecutors
and investigators to show that their case did not hinge on compelled
testimony "were all too often contradictory, unbelievable and lacking in
credibility," Urbina wrote. Because the indictment was
thrown out on legal grounds, the government could bring an appeal. It could
also re-charge the guards, although a new prosecution could be difficult
given the judge's finding that the case was so thoroughly tainted. Dean Boyd, a Justice
Department spokesman, said, "We're disappointed by the decision."
He added that the department was "still in the process of reviewing the
opinion and considering our options." Rep. Jan Schakowsky
(D-Ill.), who has in the past sponsored legislation that would prohibit the
hire of private military contractors, said she was dismayed by the news. "A question I've been
asking for a long time is, 'Can these private military contractors actually
get away with murder'" Schakowsky said. "This indicates that the
answer is yes." "There's a long history
of these kinds of companies being able to operate with impunity," she
said. The news of the dismissal
reached Baghdad late Thursday night, prompting warnings that it could further
damage U.S.-Iraqi relations. "The message is these
people are protected by the American administration," said Kurdish
lawmaker Mahmoud Othman. "These people were backed by the State
Department. ... We are entering the new year with a bad message." Othman warned: "People
won't be satisfied on the political or popular level." The five guards in the case
were Paul Slough of Keller, Texas; Nicholas Slatten of Sparta, Tenn.; Evan
Liberty of Rochester, N.H.; Dustin Heard of Maryville, Tenn.; and Donald Ball
of West Valley City, Utah. Each had been charged with multiple counts of
voluntary manslaughter and firearms violations. A sixth guard, Jeremy P.
Ridgeway, pleaded guilty to one count of voluntary manslaughter and helped
authorities confirm the details of the incident. It is unclear what effect
the judge's decision will have on Ridgeway's case. The guards maintained that
they had fired their weapons in response to an attack by insurgents. But
according to U.S. prosecutors and an Iraqi government investigation, the
shooting was unprovoked. An FBI investigation found
that at least 14 of the 17 Iraqis killed were shot without cause. The September 2007 shooting
in Baghdad's Nisoor Square, which also wounded 20, put a harsh spotlight on
the role of private security guards in the war there. Blackwater guards were
hired to provide protection for U.S. officials, but they were not bound by
all of the same rules and procedures as the U.S. military. Before the incident,
Blackwater guards had been involved in other shootings and were faulted for
firing at unarmed civilians. In their defense, the five
guards in the Nisoor Square case said they were responding to reports of an
explosive device detonating nearby as a convoy of U.S. officials approached
the area. The guards "were
defending themselves and their comrades who were being shot at and receiving
fire from Iraqis they believed to be enemy insurgents," said defense
attorney David Schertler at the time of their indictment in December 2007. Government prosecutors
disputed that the guards were returning fire. "None of the victims of
this shooting was armed," said Jeffrey A. Taylor, the U.S. attorney in
Washington, when he announced the indictment. "None was an
insurgent." The five guards were not
charged with murder but instead with voluntary manslaughter and firearms offenses. Urbina, who was appointed by
President Clinton, has a reputation as a liberal judge. Last year, he ordered
the government to free 17 Chinese Uighurs who had been held at the Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba, prison. The government refused, however, and the U.S. appeals
court reversed his order. In the Blackwater case, the
judge convened a hearing in October to determine whether the indictment was
tainted by the statements the guards had given during their initial
interviews. The hearing stretched over three weeks. He concluded Thursday that
the "defendants' compelled statements pervaded nearly every aspect of
the government's investigation and prosecution." For that reason, the entire
indictment must be dismissed, he said. In his opinion, Judge Urbina cited the
case of Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, whose conviction in the Iran-Contra case
was overturned on similar grounds in 1990. North was forced to testify
under immunity before Congress, and he was later indicted and convicted by a
special prosecutor. Although North's actual words were not used against him,
the U.S. appeals court said that the entire case was tainted because
prosecutors were aware of his testimony. Schakowsky, who had not yet
read Urbina's decision, said she would "investigate how various arms of
the government tripped over themselves in this case." "We're going to have to
understand how this happened," she said. Schakowsky said she worried
that the dismissal of charges in the Blackwater case would send a message to
the rest of the world that the U.S. military and contractors will not be held
accountable for crimes. She pointed out that soldiers and civilian
contractors are often indistinguishable in war zones. "I'll be interested to
see how the government of Iraq responds to this decision," she said.
"I think it will fuel anti-American sentiment." One survivor of the
incident, a cabdriver named Bara Sadoun Ismail, who was shot twice, still
held out hope that the guards would eventually be prosecuted. "I don't think it's
true that these five people have been released for lack of evidence," he
said. "The American justice [system] works. There is just delay." Separately, Blackwater and
its founder, Erik Prince, have been sued in federal court by the victims of
the Nisoor Square shooting. According to the Center for
Constitutional Rights, which brought the suit, the complaint alleged that
Blackwater and Prince "created and fostered a culture of lawlessness
among [Blackwater] employees, encouraging them to act in the company's
financial interests at the expense of innocent human life." Blackwater, which has
changed its name to Xe Services, is seeking to have the suit dismissed. Times staff writers Ned
Parker in Baghdad and Kate Linthicum in Los Angeles contributed to this
report. Copyright © 2010, The Los
Angeles Times External link: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/la-na-blackwater1-2010jan01,0,1469598.story |