I represented the Kinani family and five other victims of the Blackwater guards who were convicted of killing at least 14 innocent Iraqi citizens that day and injured dozens more. A caption at the bottom of the screen states . Pepe Escobar (@RealPepeEscobar) March 1, 2022. "Victims of gross human rights violations and serious violations of international humanitarian law also have the right to a remedy. If it is determined that one person was complicit in the wrongdoing, we would support accountability in that. Its worth recalling that before the Biden-Putin summit at Geneva last June, Russia had a similar troop build-up along Ukraines borders. "This incident motivated the Iraqi authorities to seek the withdrawal of American troops from the country. Now they'll go free. "They prefer animals over humans, and then they talk about human rights, justice and humanity," said an Iraqi man whose brother was among those killed in 2007. Mohammed was glad Saddams reign of terror was finally ending. The Blackwater mess has roiled Capitol Hill and shined light on the many questions surrounding the legal status, management, oversight and accountability of the private military force in Iraq,. Blackwater Mercenaries: NATOs Secret Weapon in Ukraine War, VT RADIO: Alternative Foreign Policy Talk, Khazarian Mafia at War: The Jewish Oligarch Who Planned the Terror, Russias Future Predicted by Well-Known Christian Saints, Most Front-Line Ukrainian Soldiers Killed Within 4 Hours, How Russia managed to survive Western sanctions, How War Began The Genesis of NATOs Coup in Ukraine , From Global Warming Denial to Holocaust Denial, On this day in 1940, Woody Guthrie writes This Land Is, Former U.S. President Carter to Hospice, Will Pariah Trump Attend State, Dr. Fauci Admits COVID Shots Didnt Have A Chance Of Controlling. The hallways were full. "On what basis did Trump depend on to release them? 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. . [17], Just before noon on September 16, 2007, a car bomb exploded near the Izdihar Compound where US and Iraqi officials were meeting,[20]:547 and a 19-man Blackwater Tactical Support Team (TST) consisting of a convoy of four trucks, answering to the call sign "Raven 23", took up positions on the south side of Nisour Square to secure an evacuation route for the US officials and another Blackwater team providing security for them. The logs depicted "a hectic eight minutes in which the guards repeatedly reported incoming gunfire from insurgents and Iraqi police". [19] The three justifiable killings were those of the two passengers in the white Kia sedan and an unidentified Iraqi nearby. Bullets were everywhere. Iraqi police and Iraqi Army soldiers, mistaking the stun grenades for fragmentation grenades, opened fire at the Blackwater men, to which they responded. Says Guards Killed 14 Iraqis Without Cause", "Blackwater guards lose bid to appeal charges in Iraqi civilian shooting case", "U.S. troops in Iraq will need immunity: U.S. chief", "Jurors' Note Hints at Conviction in Blackwater Case", "Former Blackwater Guards Convicted in Iraq Shooting", "Shock And Dismay After Trump Pardons Blackwater Guards Who Killed 14 Iraqi Civilians", "Trump Pardons Two Russia Inquiry Figures and Blackwater Guards", "Trump pardon of Blackwater Iraq contractors violates international law - UN", "Iraqi Inquiry Says Shooting Was Unprovoked", "Blackwater guards fired unprovoked: Iraq police evidence", "Pentagon Dispatches Investigators to Iraq to Probe Private Security Contractors", "Joint Iraqi-U.S. review begins in wake of Blackwater firefight", "Blackwater faulted by U.S. military: report", "Iraq determined to rein in private security guards", "The Iraqi Account of the Killings [infographic]", "Former Blackwater Employee Sentenced to Life Imprisonment for Murder in 2007 Shooting at Nisur Square in Iraq", "US Lawyers for Blackwater Guards: 2007 Baghdad Shooting was Self-Defense", "From Errand to Fatal Shot to Hail of Fire to 17 Deaths", "Four Former Blackwater Employees Found Guilty of Charges in Fatal Nisur Square Shooting in Iraq", "Iraqi ministers back Blackwater shutdown - CNN.com", "Iraqi Report Says Blackwater Guards Fired First", "State Dept. The U.S. legal system, a pillar of fairness in the world, had worked. [82][20] On June 5, 2012, the US Supreme Court declined to review the Appeal Court ruling, allowing the trial to proceed. [68][69], On September 24, 2007, the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior announced it would file criminal charges against the Blackwater staff involved in the shooting, although it is unclear how some of them will be brought to trial. My clients assuredly feel ignored, mistreated, and used. In 2013, Academi subsidiary International Development Solutions received an approximately $92million contract for State Department security guards. Ukrainian POW Unveils, Russian forces eliminating Ukrainian saboteurs that violated border, Greetings from Oujda, Morocco, the City of Mosques, VT RADIO: Exposing East Palestine Train Derailment Disaster with VTs, VT RADIO: Foreign Policy Gone Mad with VTs Senior Editor, VT RADIO: UFOs, Aliens, & Chinese Balloons with VTs Jack, Many Predicted NATO Expansion Would Lead to War. A federal district court judge sentenced four former Blackwater Worldwide mercenaries to lengthy prison terms on Monday for their role in the Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad, Iraq in 2007. It remains unclear whether the team member mistook the civilians for insurgents. In the middle of the attack, Mohammed could not understand why this man lying dead was a target. But NATOs covert operators embedded with Ukraines security forces reassured them that the war wasnt over and implored them to give their Western mentors a face-saving by mounting at least a semblance of resistance against the fierce onslaught by Russias professional security forces. October 22 2014, 9:58 a.m. A federal jury in Washington, D.C., returned guilty verdicts against four . Majid Al Kareem was 51 years old when he was shot. He was ensured a fair trial and convicted for his crimes. Notorious mercenaries convicted of massacre in Iraq pardoned by Trump I felt I had done that, and I knew the prosecutors were doing that. courts. 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". security contractors who had previously been sentenced over the death of 17 Iraqi civilians in the 2007 Nisur Square massacre . 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. The American judiciary is fair and equitable. [80], On April 22, 2011, after closed-door testimony, a federal appeals-court panel revived the Justice Department's prosecution of the former Blackwater Worldwide guards by reinstating the manslaughter charges against the five men. 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. "Before he died, he went crazy as he used to go out into the street and whenever he saw a young man, he imagined that he was Mahdi," he said. These men will now be free, despite their crimes, and they will not serve the time in prison they deserved. Mohammed turned his bullet-riddled SUV around and drove back to the closest hospital only a few blocks behind him. [26][29], An Iraqi government account of the incident stated that as the convoy drew close to Nisour Square, a Kia sedan with a woman and her adult son in it was approaching the square from a distance, driving slowly on the wrong side of the road, and that the driver ignored a police officer's whistle to clear a path for the convoy. More than 3,000 troops remain in Iraq, according to defense officials, with a drawdown scheduled for January. What Is Blackwater? In 2002, Blackwater received its first contract from the United States government. Mahde Shamke was 25 years old and driving a taxi to support his parents and siblings. Are they going to release me?". In his testimony, Prince noted that, "It seems the ballistics analysis was done to prove the guilt of the Americans, not to just try to identify what happened there." Prosecutors said the Blackwater convoy launched an unprovoked attack using sniper fire, machine guns and grenade launchers. The majority of the Blackwater mercenaries in Iraq after the . Defence lawyers argued their clients returned fire after being ambushed by Iraqi insurgents. [29] The banning was described by P. W. Singer, an expert on the private military industry, as "inevitable", given the US government's reliance on and lack of oversight of the private military industry in Iraq. How is Eric Prince still breathing? Blackwater mercenary Nicholas Slatten sentenced to life in prison for Donald Trump has pardoned the four contractors jailed over the killing of 14 civilians. "Paul Slough and his colleagues didn't deserve to spend one minute in prison," Brian Heberlig, a lawyer for Slough, told The Associated Press. As Raven 23 was departing Nisour Square, several members continued to discharge their weapons, causing additional civilian deaths and injuries. [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. The U.N. Human Rights Office says it's "deeply concerned" by the pardons. Former Blackwater mercenary convicted of Baghdad civilian massacre "This was the slaughter of innocent civilians who were merely going about their day when a Blackwater convoy rolled through a traffic circle after having violated orders to stand down and not exit the Green Zone and began firing indiscriminately into cars that were carrying people going to work.". "I don't know what I did to Blackwater," Kinani told ABC News. Prosecutors argued the men did not face hostile gunfire when they began shooting, and continued to shoot despite the lack of threats. [63], A U.S. judge's decision to dismiss all charges against Blackwater on January 1, 2010, sparked outrage in the Arab world. But its the much more subtle and insidious tactic of economic warfare for which Russia has no antidote, as the global neocolonial order is being led by the United States and its Western European clients since the signing of the Bretton Woods Accord in 1945 following the Second World War. Thats what lawyers do in the United States: We fight for those who cant fight for themselves. "These are four innocent guys, and it is completely justified," Bill Coffield, a lawyer for Evan Liberty, told the AP. Following Russias intervention in Ukraine, Germany alone hasproudly bragged[4] of dispatching caches of 500 US-made surface-to-air Stinger missiles and 2,700 Soviet-era, shoulder-fired Strelamissiles to Ukraines conscript military. Using the good offices of his sister Betsy Devos, who worked as Trumps secretary of education, Erik Prince even made an offer to Trump for the outsourcing of the Afghanistan war to private military contractors advising and assisting Afghan security forces following the withdrawal of US troops. American troops invaded Iraq in 2003 and toppled Saddam Hussein's regime. [84], The other four went on trial starting on June 17, 2014;[5] ten weeks of testimony and 28 days of jury deliberations resulted in convictions for all four men on October 22, 2014. Iraqi traffic police initially tried to wave down the Blackwater men that there was no threat, but they too had to run for cover. A former private military guard has been convicted of first degree murder by a court in Washington after taking part in a mass killing of unarmed civilians in Baghdad in 2007. The Blackwater incident cost the American military in the Middle East a lot more, experts interviewed by RT believe. The massacre took place in 2007, when the four were working as guards for Blackwater, a private military contractor, on an assignment in Baghdad. After capturing Kherson yesterday, Russian forces even apprehended several suspicious and armed foreign nationals who are currently being interrogated by Russias military intelligence GRU. https://t.co/O88HKyb3wd, Kevin Reed | wsws.org (@KevinReedWSWS) March 4, 2022. Who would hold party elites accountable to the values they proclaim to have? The Nisour Square massacre was one of the most publicized US crimes of the 8-year Iraq war. Mohammed quickly got out of the car and saw blood inside the rear window. [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. The massacre resulted in the deaths of 17 unarmed Iraqis and wounded at least 20 others. 2004 Fallujah ambush - Wikipedia Adela Sulimanis a London-based reporter for NBC News Digital. They then set off stun grenades to clear the scene. Mohammed met members of the U.S. Army on the streets and handed out candy and juice when he saw them. When he arrived at the hospital, it was a war zone. The killing of innocent civilians, including two young boys, sparked international outrage and public scrutiny into the use of private military companies . He was told that he had to go to a neurologic hospital on the other side of Baghdad. 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. Trump Pardons Blackwater Contractors Who Killed Iraqis Nassar Hamza was 67 years old when he was shot and wounded in the arm. Witnesses described how the American men ambushed the civilians unprovoked, firing on Baghdad's Nisour Square with heavy gunfire and grenade launchers. Consider what the world of media would look like without The Intercept. Shots were fired everywhere. As Mohammed held his sons hand, he convulsed and died in the back of the ambulance. [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. The pardons are one of several the US president has granted to American service personnel and contractors accused or convicted of crimes against non-combatants and civilians in war zones. "I am overwhelmed with emotion at this fantastic news.". https://www.ournewearthnews.com/2022/03/04/massacre-in-ukraine-caught-on-camera-and-probably-still-unfolding-viewer-discretion-advised-please-pray/. For us, for everyone. 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. Boslego also said the attack had a negative effect on our mission, [an] adverse effect It made our relationship with the Iraqis in general more strained.. 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. Ghasson Mahmood was a 55-year-old civil engineer. [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.