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 report found that the guards fired their weapons 195 times from the beginning of 2005 through the second week of September 2005. Nasser, who attended the 2014 trial in the United States, said his brother's death had broken his father's heart. The U.N. Human Rights Office says it's "deeply concerned" by the pardons. About the author:Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based geopolitical and national security analyst focused on geostrategic affairs and hybrid warfare in the Af-Pak and the Middle East regions. 2004 Fallujah ambush - Wikipedia Blackwater and the Corporate Mercenaries who've - NationofChange American troops invaded Iraq in 2003 and toppled Saddam Hussein's regime. The expense was to show the people of Iraq that the U.S. government would hold people accountable for their crimes, no matter when or where they were committed. [25][31], The account by the Blackwater firm differed from the Iraqi government's account; Blackwater's account stated the driver of the Kia sedan had kept driving toward the convoy, ignoring verbal orders, hand signals, and water bottles thrown at the car, and continued to approach even when fired upon. Video of the aftermath includes an image of a human brain on the road in Nisour Square. The majority of the Blackwater mercenaries in Iraq after the . Why did it happen? Luckily, before his SUV was attacked, Mohammed, his sister, and their children had time to duck into the car. That day destroyed me completely, Kinani said. In November last year, he pardoned a former US army commando who was set to stand trial over the killing of a suspected Afghan bomb-maker, and a former army lieutenant convicted of murder for ordering his men to fire at three Afghans. Each time the criminal charges were seemed lost, the U.S. Department of Justice told them they were not forgotten that we would continue to pursue the convictions of those who committed the crimes against them. By Andrew Emett - August 16, 2019 1269 SOURCE NationofChange Blackwater Mercenaries Sentenced for 2007 Iraq Massacre Raven 23 "returned defensive fire" and withdrew from Nisour Square with one of its BearCat vehicles in tow. [37], Blackwater, which had been operating in Iraq without an Iraqi government license, applied for one after the incident, but the application was rejected by Iraqi officials in January 2009. The four were convicted at then VP Joe Biden's insistence, and were serving jail terms. It wasnt. "I'm really shocked. The other three guards faced decades in prison; the weapons charges carried a minimum 30-year sentence under a law enacted during the 1990s cocaine epidemic. I know that each of them placed great faith in the U.S. legal system. [10][11] The next day, Blackwater Worldwide's license to operate in Iraq was temporarily revoked. [45] Also, it is not clear whether the license revocation is permanent. 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. It looks at the rise of private security contractors such as Blackwater in the era of modern warfare. 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. And none of the I.P. Erik Prince said that he didn't believe the FBI had fully investigated the sources of all the used bullets in Nisour Square, arguing that it would have been helpful if the defense had been in possession of a complete ballistics report. He lay in the hallway for an hour before he died. Blackwater was founded by Erik Prince, whose sister, Betsy DeVos, was appointed Trumps education secretary. What Is Blackwater? She turned the location into an exotic bookstore and caf, offering erotica readings, among other licentious pastimes. In 2002, Blackwater received its first contract from the United States government. 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 . Slatten faced a potential sentence of life in prison. The massacre took place in 2007, when the four were working as guards for Blackwater, a private military contractor, on an assignment in Baghdad. "This was Baghdad's Bloody Sunday," Dickinson told NPR's Mary Louise Kelly on Wednesday. The Blackwater incident cost the American military in the Middle East a lot more, experts interviewed by RT believe. Slough, Liberty and Heard were convicted on multiple charges of voluntary and attempted manslaughter in 2014, while Slatten, who was the first to start shooting, was convicted of first-degree murder. Ghasson Mahmood was a 55-year-old civil engineer. Trump pardons Blackwater contractors jailed for massacre of Iraq - Asser Institute (Decision Date: 31 December 2009)", "Ex-Blackwater Guards Face Renewed Charges", "Blackwater guards face new U.S. charges for Iraq shooting deaths", "Legal questions loom in Blackwater convictions", "Blackwater guards found guilty in Iraq shootings", "Emails Reveal Discord Over Blackwater Charges", "Ex-Blackwater Guards Sentenced to Long Prison Terms in 2007 Killings of Iraqi Civilians", "U.S. Appeals Court Tosses Ex-Blackwater Guard's Conviction in 2007 Baghdad Massacre", "Murder conviction in Blackwater case thrown out, other sentences overturned", "In Blackwater Case, Court Rejects a Murder Conviction and Voids 3 Sentences", Recent Case: D.C. Mohammed turned his bullet-riddled SUV around and drove back to the closest hospital only a few blocks behind him. The headrest next to him where his sister sat had a bullet hole through it. Blackwater mercenary sentenced to life in prison - NationofChange No wonder Russia formally issued an ultimatum on Tuesday, March 1, that it would target the hub of covert warfare. [95][96] Heard, Liberty, and Slough were resentenced on September 5, 2019 to terms approximately half the original 30-year periods. AP Despite losing the empire in the nineties, as far as military power is concerned, Russia with its enormous arsenal of conventional as well as nuclear weapons still more or less equals the military power of the United States, as is obvious from the unfolding Ukraine war where all the NATO could do is watch it from distance, and not even attempting to enforce a no-fly zone lest the conflict spirals into a mutually destructive nuclear war. Who would be responsible for the myopic and vindictive policy of providing anti-aircraft munitions to Ukraines irregular militias once Kyiv falls and those MANPADS are found in black markets posing a grave risk to civilian airlines across the globe? Russian Forces strike Ukrainian Armys Electronic Intelligence Center in Kiev Region. [19] According to this account, the security team fired warning shots and then lethal fire at the Kia. "The victims' families finally saw some measure of justice when these men were convicted in 2014 and sentenced to prison. 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 . Their route home was through Nisour Square. Are they going to release me?". [56], On April 1, 2011, the Associated Press reported on Erik Prince's seven-hour testimony about what allegedly transpired. Before. 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. 3", is named Paul Slough. 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. Opinion | Trump's Most Disgusting Pardons - The New York Times [3][84] Prosecutors stated they reached their decision after an "assessment of the admissible evidence against him". As shootings in the square were not uncommon, it is unclear whether the shells were from the shooting in question or from other incidents. [40] The US House passed a bill, titled the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, that would make all private contractors working in Iraq and other combat zones subject to prosecution by U.S. They are coming to defend freedom, defend life. Ukraine War Anniversary: UN and China Work for Peace, Devilish Zelensky, Kiev Hid Its Dead Soldiers in the Ravines. 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". The fire has since been extinguished after the plant was captured by Russian troops and no radiation leakage has been detected. Erik Prince, chair of the Prince Group LLC and Blackwater USA, holds up a picture showing the effect of a car bomb while testifying during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on Capitol Hill Oct. 2, 2007 in Washington, D.C. Mohammed was going to visit his sister and her children. Trump's Blackwater Guard Pardons Cause Shock And Dismay : NPR [34], In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, Blackwater's rights to conduct work in Iraq were temporarily suspended. As many as 504 children, women and older men were killed by a US infantry company, members of which also raped numerous women and girls. "Victims of gross human rights violations and serious violations of international humanitarian law also have the right to a remedy. [47], The U.S. State Department said it planned to investigate what it called a "terrible incident". When Slattens conviction was overturned, I was concerned that the case would be ignored. The traffic circle, Nisour Square, was only a block away from one of the main entrance gates to Baghdads Green Zone. A burnt car at the site where Blackwater guards opened fire on a crowd in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2007. The report found that the use of contractors such as Blackwater was a "new form of mercenary activity" and illegal under international law; however, the United States is not a signatory of the 1989 UN Mercenary Convention banning the use of mercenaries.
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