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Verdict expected in Blackwater shooting case Jury convicts Blackwater guards in 2007 Iraq deaths
(35 minutes later)
A federal jury in Washington is expected to return a verdict later Wednesday morning in the trial of four Blackwater Worldwide guards facing homicide and firearm charges in the 2007 shootings of 31 unarmed Iraqis in a Baghdad traffic circle. Seven years after American security contractors killed 14 unarmed Iraqis by firing machine guns and grenades into a Baghdad traffic circle, a jury in Washington on Wednesday convicted all four Blackwater Worldwide guards charged in the incident on at least some of the charges.
U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the District has called jurors to the courtroom at 11:40 a.m., a day after jurors said they had reached a verdict on at least one count. It’s unclear whether they are deadlocked on others. The verdicts marked a victory for prosecutors, who argued in a 10-week trial that the defendants fired wildly and out-of-control in a botched security operation after one of them falsely claimed to believe the driver of an approaching vehicle was a car bomber.
In a 10-week trial, prosecutors argued that the American security contractors fired wildly and out-of-control in a botched security operation after one of them falsely claimed to believe the driver of an approaching vehicle was a car bomber. The guards claimed they acted in self-defense and responded appropriately to the car bomb threat and the sound of incoming AK-47 gunfire, their defense said.
The guards claimed they acted in self-defense, and responded appropriately to the threat of the car and the sound of incoming AK-47 gunfire, their defense said. Overall, defendants were charged with the deaths of 14 Iraqis and the wounding of 17 others at Baghdad’s Nisour Square shortly after noon on Sept. 16, 2007. None was an insurgent
Overall, defendants were charged with the deaths of 14 Iraqis and the wounding of 17 others at Baghdad’s Nisour Square shortly after noon on Sept. 16, 2007. None was an insurgent. The jury of eight women and four men deliberated 27 days before convicting Nicholas A. Slatten, of Sparta, Tenn., of murder. The panel also convicted Paul A. Slough of Keller, Tex.; Evan S. Liberty of Rochester, N.H.; and Dustin L. Heard of Knoxville, Tenn., who faced manslaughter, attempted manslaughter and firearms charges.
The jury of eight women and four men has deliberated seven weeks over the fate of Paul A. Slough of Keller, Tex.; Evan S. Liberty of Rochester, N.H.; and Dustin L. Heard of Knoxville, Tenn., who face manslaughter, attempted manslaughter and firearms charges. The jury’s verdict marked an end to a years-long quest by prosecutors to bring the case to trial, and a milestone in the government’s efforts to monitor security contractors’ conduct on the battlefield.
Nicholas A. Slatten, of Sparta, Tenn., faces a single count of murder, after prosecutors missed a deadline to file manslaughter charges. The contractor shootings and the American government’s refusal to allow the men to be tried in Iraq sent relations between the two countries into a crisis, and the Blackwater name became shorthand for unaccountable U.S. power.
If convicted, the guards, all military veterans, face prison sentences of up to 15 years for each count of voluntary manslaughter, eight years for each count of involuntary manslaughter, and seven years for each count of attempted manslaughter, In Congress, lawmakers denounced the Nisour Square shooting as recently as July, but legislation that would provide clearer jurisdiction for U.S. prosecutors and investigators to pursue criminal wrongdoing overseas by private security contractors has languished for years.
If convicted of using a military-style weapon while committing voluntary manslaughter, a defendant would face a mandatory minimum prison sentence of 30 years. The security firm’s founder, Erik Prince, eventually left the company, which was renamed Xe Services and then Academi.
The defendants were among 19 Blackwater Worldwide guards providing security for State Department officials in Iraq. At the time of the incident, their convoy was clearing the way for another Blackwater team evacuating a U.S. official from a nearby car bombing.
Jurors appeared to partly accept the guards’ claims that they acted in self-defense, but concluded that at least some of them reacted excessively and unreasonably. The men mistakenly believed that a white Kia sedan approaching their four-vehicle convoy was carrying a bomb, and responded to the sound of AK-47 gunshots, their defense said.
The prosecution faced several obstacles, including some problems of the government’s own making.
Charges in the shooting were first brought against six Blackwater employees in 2008, one of whom, Jeremy Ridgeway, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and testified for the government in the current trial. Charges against another man, Donald Ball, were dropped.
A federal judge, however, threw out the other indictments in 2009, saying that prosecutors improperly relied on statements that the guards gave the State Department immediately after the shooting, believing that they would not be used in court. An appeals court reversed that ruling in 2011, enabling prosecutors to obtain fresh indictments.
The remaining four defendants claimed the violence was triggered by Ridgeway, whom a prosecutor conceded suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and “lost it” in Iraq, and by the convoy’s team leader, Jimmy Watson, who like several other members of the Blackwater team was granted limited immunity by the government for their testimony against former colleagues.
While prosecutors called 70 witnesses to only four for the defense, some ex-Blackwater employees also disagreed over whether Slatten or others fired the first shots, and some agreed that they heard incoming AK-47 fire.
The prosecution suffered another setback during the trial when they discovered that they had failed to turn over all the photographs from a computer disk of evidence taken by investigators after the incident, including one belatedly released to defendants showing AK-47 shell casings from a bus stop near the square from which they claimed to be taking fire.
Prosecutors claimed the convoy’s command vehicle was hit by shrapnel from an American grenade.
Prosecutors also claimed that Slatten “lit the match that ignited the firestorm,” assistant U.S. attorney Anthony Asuncion said in closing arguments, and charged Slough, the convoy command vehicle’s turret gunner, with causing the most harm, as team members fired unprovoked into stopped traffic and then turned more and more firepower onto a panicked, fleeing crowd.
To make the case, prosecutors called 30 Iraqis to appear, in what it said was the largest number of foreign witnesses to testify in a U.S. criminal trial.
Prosecutors also contended that Slatten and Liberty held hostility toward the Iraqi civilian population, and with Slough on occasion fired weapons at Iraqi targets without provocation.
Defendants’ attorneys said their clients acted reasonably at a time when the Iraqi capital was the scene of “horrific threats” from car bombs, ambushes and follow-on attacks, sometimes aided by Iraqi security forces infiltrated by guerrillas.
Defense attorneys said the U.S. government was overstepping legal limits by even bringing the prosecution under MEJA, or the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, under which government employees and contractors can be prosecuted for criminal acts they commit abroad.
Defendants said they were in Iraq under contract with the State Department, not the Pentagon. Prosecutors said MEJA extends to those engaged in actions related to supporting the U.S. military mission.