He hid behind the police traffic booth, but shots came directly at him, hitting the adjacent traffic light and booth's door, and he fled back across Yarmouk road to safety behind a hill. Associated Press WASHINGTON Four former Blackwater Worldwide security guards were convicted and immediately jailed Wednesday for their roles in a deadly 2007 shooting in Baghdad's Nisour Square. Private. We are taking fire from insurgents and Iraqi police. )[60], Baghdad resident Halim Mashkoor told AP Television News, "We see the security firms doing whatever they want in the streets. However, according to Reuters, a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit, claiming that "the U.S. government had recklessly violated the defendants' constitutional rights." The Nisour Square massacre was one of the lowest episodes of the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq. [6][85][86] Jurors sided with prosecutors' contention that the shooting was a criminal act, not a battlefield encounter gone wrong. Circuit Holds It Cruel and Unusual to Impose Mandatory Thirty-Year Sentence on Military Contractors for Gun Charge, "Former Blackwater contractor found guilty of murder in Iraq massacre", "Former Blackwater Guard Sentenced to Life for 2007 Baghdad Traffic-Circle Shooting", "Former Blackwater security contractor sentenced to life in Iraq shootings; In all, 10 men, two women and two boys, ages 9 and 11, were killed", "Blackwater Contractors Resentenced in 2007 Attack on Baghdad Civilians", "Survivors of Blackwater massacre in Iraq slam Trump's pardons for US guards behind killing", "Statement from the Press Secretary Regarding Executive Grants of Clemency", "Relative of Blackwater victim in Iraq says pardons 'unfair', "UN criticises Trump's pardons for Blackwater guards jailed over Iraq killings", "I Sued Blackwater for the Massacre of Iraqi Civilians. His brother left behind a wife and four children. [32] In response to the guards' killing of the Iraqi policeman, other Iraqi police officers began to fire at the Blackwater men, who communicated to the State Department operations center that they were under attack. Fareed Walid Hassan remembers that "the shooting started like rain." In August 2017, the D.C. The Blackwater guards also shot at cars, taxis, and buses. He suffered from his wounds for over a year . In an instant, Ahmed was shot through the head. ", Once their name was associated with the Nisour Square massacre, Blackwater ended up changing its name to Xe Services. [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. An Iraqi looks 24 September 2007, at a burnt car on the site where Blackwater guards who were escorting US embassy officials opened fire in the western Baghdad neighbourhood of Yarmukh, a shootout . After the convictions, Blackwater which changed its name to Xe and then Academi after being sold said it was relieved that the justice system has completed its investigation into a tragedy that occurred at Nisour Square in 2007 and that any wrongdoing that was carried out has been addressed by our courts. [93], On December 19, 2018, Slatten was found guilty of murder[94] and again was sentenced to life in prison on August 14, 2019. 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. [95][96] Heard, Liberty, and Slough were resentenced on September 5, 2019 to terms approximately half the original 30-year periods. They beat citizens and scorn them. Haythem, the composed, articulate and powerfully calm father and husband of Ahmed and Mohasin, who died in the white car, expected them to pick him up at the health center where he worked that afternoon. The trial against Heard, Liberty, Slatten, and Slough began around June 2014 and lasted over two months. [19] A Blackwater spokeswoman responded to the findings by saying Blackwater "supports the stringent accountability of the industry. (Iraqi police) or any of the local security forces fired back at them", the official continued. Initially, they worked providing training support to law enforcement and the justice department, but as Prince once stated, their "corporate goal [was] to do for the national security apparatus what FedEx did to the postal service." And Blackwater didn't make the investigation easy. Black Water is a 2007 Australian horror film written and directed by Andrew Traucki and David Nerlich. [14], On October 13, 2007, the FBI reported that it had concluded that at least 14 of the 17 Iraqis who died in the square had been killed without cause. He ran three cars back to a white sedan to find a woman holding a young man slumped over and covered with blood. In some instances, like in 2004 when Blackwater members were hired to locate and assassinate top Al-Qaeda operatives, they failed to capture or kill anyone. Fifteen minutes later, the four-car convoy continued around the square and drove away. The deceased included nine and 11-year-old boys. Ahmed Haythem and his mother, Mohasin, were both killed in the Blackwater shootings in Baghdad on September 16, 2007. According to Tidings Media, one guard continued to shoot at unarmed civilians until another guard drew his own gun on him and threatened to shoot. "The civilians that were fired upon, they didn't have any weapons to fire back at them. The New York Times reports that when Richter confronted Daniel Carroll, Blackwater's Iraq project manager, about this on August 21, 2007, Carroll became incredibly aggressive and told Richter "that he [Carroll] could kill me [Richter] at that very moment and no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq. [12] On October 4, 2007, the U.S. House passed a bill that would make all private contractors working in Iraq and other combat zones subject to the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act[65] [62] After a group of Iraqi ministers backed the Iraqi Interior Ministry's decision to shut down Blackwater USA's operations in Iraq,[29] Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki called on the U.S. government to end its contract with Blackwater[39] and called on Blackwater to pay the families $8million in compensation. Some witnesses also claimed that the same Blackwater team subsequently opened fire on another line of traffic after the shooting in Nisour Square. Rogers. The order did not say when the suspension would expire. His tough faade cracked as he described the moment he learned about the shootings. Director Pasha Patriki Writers Chad Law Tyler W. Konney Richard Switzer Stars Jean-Claude Van Damme Dolph Lundgren Al Sapienza See production, box office & company info Watch on Freevee Watch Free on Freevee More watch options Khalaf recounted the events of that day to a hushed room of lawyers with laptops. Khalaf, who was there before the shooting began, said he never saw anyone fire on or approach the convoy. (L-r) Dustin Heard, Evan Liberty, Paul Slough, Nicholas Slatten. By 2007, the State Department started reviewing Blackwater's $1 billion contract and they discovered a slew of misconduct. ", According to the memo Richter wrote to State Department officials in Washington after the incident, "Mr. Carroll's statement was made in a low, even tone of voice, his head was slightly lowered; his eyes were fixed on mine. "I tried to help the young man, but his mother was holding him so tight," said Khalaf. In a panic, Hooby turned his car around and was leaving the area when the convoy approached from behind, throwing water bottles at the roof of his car. John M. Patarini was the FBI agent leading the investigation, and although they went into the investigation thinking that civilians had merely been caught in crossfire, they soon realized that "it was a massacre along the lines of My Lai in Vietnam," per The Guardian. Finally, around 5 p.m., he phoned his brother who worked at the hospital closest to Nissour Square. [88], On August 4, 2017, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned Slatten's murder conviction and ordered the other defendants to be re-sentenced to time already served. The logs depicted "a hectic eight minutes in which the guards repeatedly reported incoming gunfire from insurgents and Iraqi police". Blackwater's contracts for protecting American diplomats also weren't limited to Iraq. The 14 victims killed by the Blackwater guards on trial were listed as Ahmed Haithem Ahmed Al Rubiay, Mahassin Mohssen Kadhum Al-Khazali, Osama Fadhil Abbas, Ali Mohammed Hafedh Abdul Razzaq, Mohamed Abbas Mahmoud, Qasim Mohamed Abbas Mahmoud, Saadi Ali Abbas Alkarkh, Mushtaq Karim Abd Al-Razzaq, Ghaniyah Hassan Ali, Ibrahim Abid Ayash, Hamoud Saeed Abttan, Uday Ismail Ibrahiem, Mahdi Sahib Nasir and Ali Khalil Abdul Hussein. It remains unclear whether the team member mistook the civilians for insurgents. The numerals and letters matched the family's plate. Like Khalaf, Hooby said he never saw anyone on his side of the square make even a threatening gesture toward the Blackwater convoy. FBI team leader: How I know the Blackwater defendants didn't - CNN The UN has sharply criticised President Donald Trump's decision to pardon four former Blackwater . Meanwhile, although Moonen admitted that he was intoxicated, he maintained that he shot in self-defense. Human Rights Watch is a 501(C)(3)nonprofit registered in the US under EIN: 13-2875808. Ex-Blackwater contractor sentenced to life in Iraq shootings By ASHRAF KHALIL August 14, 2019 WASHINGTON (AP) A former Blackwater security contractor was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison for his role in the 2007 shooting of unarmed civilians in Iraq that left 14 people dead. Graphs are temporarily unavailable due to technical issues.
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