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Blackwater and its employees had been given immunity from any criminal or civil exposure in Iraq that was part of Princes contract with the State Department. [63], A U.S. judge's decision to dismiss all charges against Blackwater on January 1, 2010, sparked outrage in the Arab world. . He was in the car next to Mohammed. We dont have ads, so we depend on our members 35,000 and counting to help us hold the powerful to account. 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. That day destroyed me completely, Kinani said. The pardons have reduced American talk of human rights to mere "slogans," he said, adding, "They prefer animals over humans, and then they talk about human rights, justice and humanity. Blackwater was founded by Erik Prince, whose sister, Betsy DeVos, was appointed Trumps education secretary. ", Trump Grants Slew Of Pardons, Including To George Papadopoulos And Duncan Hunter, Blackwater Guards Found Guilty In 2007 Shootings In Iraq, Lawyer For Victims' Families On Trump Pardoning 4 Former Blackwater Contractors. Video of the aftermath includes an image of a human brain on the road in Nisour Square. [54], Radio logs released in December 2008 seemed to affirm that the guards had been responding to an attack on September 16. Monday's sentencing was. When he arrived at the hospital, it was a war zone. When Mohammed saw the convoy enter the traffic circle, he initially thought they were regular U.S. Army members. Contractor Banned by Iraq Over Shootings", "F.B.I. In 2002, Blackwater received its first contract from the United States government. [89][90][91] The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit's fractured per curiam decision first found that Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act authorized the prosecutions, over the partial dissent of Judge Janice Rogers Brown. During the litigation, an appeal was ongoing in the 4h Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia. 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. In their view, this confirmed that they were under attack by a vehicle bomb, whereupon they fired at the car, killing both people in it as well as the Iraqi policeman. Not a one! The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq increasingly relied on private contractors, Blackwater being only the most infamous. Before. Again be warned it is ugly. 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 massacre that sparked an international outcry over the use of mercenaries in war. Four Blackwater security guards convicted in 2014 of carrying out a massacre of Iraqi civilians, sparking an international outcry over the use of mercenaries in war . 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. He was shot through the roof of his car as the Blackwater convoy drove past firing down into traffic. The Nisour Square massacre was one of the most publicized US crimes of the 8-year Iraq war. They could not do anything for him. [23]:32 Shortly after assuming their positions, "Raven 23" began firing on civilians in response to an approaching car, killing fourteen and wounding twenty more. They started out as a private security firm providing training support to law enforcement, the justice department, and military organizations and received their first contract from the United States government in 2000 after the bombing of the USS Cole. When #Blackwater mercenaries were murdering civilians in the #IraqWar, did these voices demand seizure of yachts owned by CEO Erik Prince? 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. First ones from 16,000. Hussein Saheb Nasser, 35, told NBC News by telephone from his home in Baghdad on Wednesday. [14] The Iraqi government vowed to punish Blackwater. After it was added, defense attorneys contended a 30-year sentence would be too severe, since the law was intended to deter gang members from carrying automatic weapons. When Mohammed opened the door, his son fell toward him as his skull opened and a large part of Alis brain fell onto the pavement between his fathers feet. If it is determined that one person was complicit in the wrongdoing, we would support accountability in that. 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. Slattern was sentenced to life and the others to 30 years in prison each. They would turn Blackwater into roadkill. )[60], Baghdad resident Halim Mashkoor told AP Television News, "We see the security firms doing whatever they want in the streets. 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. "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.". Now justice has been undone by the stroke of a pen," Sarah Holewinski, the organization's Washington director, said in a statement. The civil lawsuit was filed as a wrongful death and personal injury suit against the men and companies responsible for my clients losses. To understand the carnage that happened on the streets that day, you need to hear it in Mohammeds words as he explained it to me. But he knew he was surviving as he kept yelling for the children in the back of his SUV to stay down. [3] Erik Prince provided weapons and aircraft to eastern Libyas warlord Khalifa Haftar: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/25/world/middleeast/libya-mercenaries-arms-embargo.html. 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. Iraqi authorities say 17 people were killed; the Department of Justice has said the total was 14. Also quoted in the memorandum was David Boslego, a retired US army colonel, who said the massacre was a grossly excessive use of force and grossly inappropriate for an entity whose only job was to provide personal protection to somebody in an armoured vehicle. 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. Because any state, particularly those pursuing socialist policies, that dares to challenge the Western monopoly over global trade and economic policies is internationally isolated and its national economy goes bankrupt over a period of time. After capturing Kherson yesterday, Russian forces even apprehended several suspicious and armed foreign nationals who are currently being interrogated by Russias military intelligence GRU. "This incident motivated the Iraqi authorities to seek the withdrawal of American troops from the country. Despite having immense firepower at its disposal that could readily turn the tide in conflicts as protracted as Syrias proxy war, the Russian advance in Ukraine has been slower than expected according to most estimates because Russia is only targeting military infrastructure and doing all it can to minimize collateral damage, particularly needless civilian losses in the former Soviet republic whose majority population is sympathetic to Russia. The My Lai massacre took place on 16 March 1968. The fire has since been extinguished after the plant was captured by Russian troops and no radiation leakage has been detected. A 20,000-strong mercenary army is being assembled in Poland. What Is Blackwater? The September 16, 2007 shootings by Blackwater mercenaries left 14 Iraqis dead and wounded 18 others in Baghdad's Nisour Square. 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. The massacre took place in 2007, when the four were working as guards for Blackwater, a private military contractor, on an assignment in Baghdad. Russian-American political scientist Malek Dudakov called the shooting a landmark event and a major international scandal. Ali was slumped over against the glass. The Iraqi government ordered Blackwater to leave Iraq as soon as a joint Iraqi-U.S. committee finished drafting new guidelines on private contractors under the Iraqi-U.S. security agreement. In 2014, four former government contractors who worked for Blackwater Worldwide, a security firm founded by Erik Prince an ally of Trump and the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos were convicted in federal court in Washington in connection with the killings. The Nisour Square massacre was the FBI's most comprehensive and expensive criminal investigation since 9/11. [54] He served one tour in Iraq before being hired as a Personal Security Specialist in Iraq. The efforts of the investigators, the prosecutors, and the men and women who supported them was immeasurable. LONDON and BAGHDAD -- When news broke that Mohammed Kinani's son's killers, Blackwater private military contractors hired by the U.S. government in Baghdad, were pardoned Wednesday by President Trump, Kinani said it was like losing his 9-year-old boy all over again. In the middle of the attack, Mohammed could not understand why this man lying dead was a target. Pepe Escobar (@RealPepeEscobar) March 1, 2022. These convictions happened under the Obama Administration. The incident was allegedly resolved only after another Blackwater contractor pointed his weapon at the man still firing and ordered him to stop. President Donald Trump's decision to pardon four Blackwater private security contractors convicted of a massacre in Baghdad has been met with fury by the victims' families in Iraq. The only way these men could be brought to justice was in the United States.

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blackwater mercenaries massacre

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