blackwater mercenaries massacre

The Machiavellian plan of NATOs military strategists is to establish refugee settlements with the humanitarian assistance in the border regions of Ukraines neighboring countries Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria, and then provide guerrilla warfare training and lethal arms to all able-bodied men of military age in order to bleed Russias security forces in the protracted irregular warfare. Slatten faced a potential sentence of life in prison. [24] The driver of the Kia was shot once in the head by a Blackwater contractor and was killed. Shots were fired everywhere. The Blackwater incident cost the American military in the Middle East a lot more, experts interviewed by RT believe. "Trump pardons Blackwater contractors jailed for massacre of Iraq civilians", 23 December 2020. Being so close to the Green Zone, he thought someone important might be entering or leaving the area. For us, for everyone. 15 years after US Blackwater mercenaries massacred civilians in Baghdad Opinion | Trump's Most Disgusting Pardons - The New York Times 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. "[46] Hasan Jaber Salman, a lawyer who was one of the wounded, said that "no one did anything to provoke Blackwater" and that "as we turned back they opened fire at all cars from behind"[61] An Iraqi police officer who was directing traffic at the scene said Blackwater guards "became the terrorists" when they opened fire on civilians unprovoked, while a businessman said he wasn't seeking compensation but only "the truth" from the guards. Scores of Iraqis injured in anti-government protests in Baghdad, Who will protect us?: Baghdad residents wait out fighting as city grinds to halt, Iraqi cleric tells loyalists to return to their homes after fighting in Baghdad, Deadly violence in Baghdad after leading cleric Moqtada al-Sadr says he is quitting politics, Shia factions mass in Baghdad raising fears of more unrest, Protesters storm Iraq parliament again amid unrest over Iran-backed groups, Iran may eventually get its way in protracted power struggle in Iraq, Hundreds of protesters storm Iraq parliament in support of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, Briton jailed in Iraq for smuggling antiquities to be freed, says lawyer. Mahde Shamke was 25 years old and driving a taxi to support his parents and siblings. Then one of his sisters children said that Ali was hurt. [63], A U.S. judge's decision to dismiss all charges against Blackwater on January 1, 2010, sparked outrage in the Arab world. The four armored vehicles drove away. The committee was co-chaired by Abd al Qadir, the Iraqi Minister of Defense, and Patricia A. Butenis, the Charg d'affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. "[21] Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki harshly criticized the dismissal. The U.N. Human Rights Office says it's "deeply concerned" by the pardons. When Mohammed looked to his right, the driver of the car next to him shouted that the soldiers had just shot into another car in front of them. 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. Trump's pardon of mercenaries guilty of massacre in Iraq leads to It is unfortunate and sad that those efforts have now been wasted. [44] Blackwater's operations on behalf of the U.S. Department of State and the CIA may be unaffected by license revocation. The Nisour Square massacre was one of the most prominent events of the US-Iraq conflict, raising doubts about America's true intentions in the region. 15 years after US Blackwater mercenaries massacred civilians in Baghdad Dark Truth Exposed: East Palestine Rail Disaster, BOAC 707 Sabotage, Why people should start business in Lithuania, Best Strategy To Play Online Baccarat Games, Effects of Incontinence in Various Areas of Life, Conversations from the porch Episode 19 with Jack Heart &, Covert Operations In Vietnam: The Incomplete History of US-Norway Collaboration. How is Eric Prince still breathing? Trump Pardons Blackwater Mercenaries, Ex- - Democracy Now! Before embarking on the clandestine Kyiv visit, Erik Prince consulted with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Director National Intelligence Avril Haines, with whom his relationship goes a long way the back to the early nineties after she purchased a bar in Fells Point, Baltimore, which had been seized in a drug raid. He thought they had been given a miracle after he saw so many others killed. [25], A State Department spot report published the same day as the incident stated that eight to ten attackers opened fire on Raven 23 "from multiple nearby locations, with some aggressors dressed in civilian apparel and others in Iraqi police uniforms" after the convoy had entered Nisour Square,[26] starting at 12:08p.m.[27] The report added that another Blackwater Tactical Support Team (TST 22), who had escorted the officials and TST 4 back to the Green Zone, was redirected to support Raven 23. The Kia continued to roll forward after the driver was killed, according to an eyewitness, and Raven 23 continued to fire on it, killing the passenger (the driver's mother); eventually, the Kia was struck by a grenade and was incinerated. 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. [57], In October 2007, the United Nations released a two-year study that stated that private contractors, although hired as "security guards", were performing military duties. Since the harrowing Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad in 2007, the Blackwater private military contractor, renamed as Academi in 2011 and becoming a subsidiary of Constellis Group following a merger with Triple Canopy in 2014, has built quite a business empire for itself. U.S. troops were coming under fire in Baghdad and major Iraqi cities from the resistance forces. His sister was safe. 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. 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 . Nassar Hamza was 67 years old when he was shot and wounded in the arm. Defence lawyers argued their clients returned fire after being ambushed by Iraqi insurgents. Blackwater Trial: What You Need to Know - NBC News Video of the aftermath includes an image of a human brain on the road in Nisour Square. [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. [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. Trump pardons Blackwater killers for Nisour Square massacre [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. The news shows the helicopter falling to the ground as it burns. 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. A burnt car at the site where Blackwater guards opened fire on a crowd in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2007. 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". On Tuesday, President Trump pardoned 15 people, including Dustin Heard (from left), Evan Liberty, Nicholas Slatten and Paul Slough, the four former government contractors convicted for a 2007 massacre in Baghdad that left more than a dozen Iraqi civilians dead. Sequence of events triggering the Nisour Square massacre, Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, Private Security Company Association of Iraq, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security, Inspector General of the U.S. State Department, United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, "U.S. In his meetings with the high-ups in the US national security agencies, Erik Prince reportedly obtained a gentlemans promise, though without any documentary assurances due to the secretive nature of the Faustian pact, that he and his associates would not be held legally liable for the dirty work they do in the Ukraine proxy war. courts. The traffic circle, Nisour Square, was only a block away from one of the main entrance gates to Baghdads Green Zone. I sued Blackwater, its founder Erik Prince, and the four men who were convicted of murder, manslaughter, or weapons charges in a civil lawsuit filed in North Carolina, the home of Blackwaters headquarters and training facility in Moyock. https://t.co/O88HKyb3wd, Kevin Reed | wsws.org (@KevinReedWSWS) March 4, 2022. "I don't know what I did to Blackwater," Kinani told ABC News. USA: Four Blackwater contractors jailed for massacre of Iraq civilians "Today we were surprised that the American president issued a decision to pardon these criminals, murderers and thugs," Salman said, speaking from Baghdad. [41] Senate Democratic leaders said they planned to pass similar legislation as soon as possible. Let us assume that I travel to America and kill 17 American citizens. The order did not say when the suspension would expire. Four guards fired on unarmed crowd in Baghdad in 2007, killing 14 and sparking outrage over use of private security in war zones. [41], Richard J. Griffin, the Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security, who made key decisions regarding the department's oversight of private security contractor Blackwater USA, resigned in November 2007, after a critical review by the House Oversight Committee found that his office had failed to adequately supervise private contractors during the Blackwater Baghdad shootings. It wasnt unusual for regular U.S. Army convoys to stop traffic. Rogers. 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. [63] The suit was settled for an undisclosed sum in January 2010. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. At the sentencing, the US attorneys office said in a statement: The sheer amount of unnecessary human loss and suffering attributable to the defendants criminal conduct on 16 September 2007 is staggering., After news of the pardon emerged on Tuesday night, Brian Heberlig, a lawyer for one of the four pardoned Blackwater defendants, said: Paul Slough and his colleagues didnt deserve to spend one minute in prison. . Mohammed had not been shot. Extending the hand of friendship, Russia significantly drawdown its forces along the western border before the summit last year. The convictions made the victims feel that justice had been obtained. Blackwater Worldwide - The New York Times Justice Blackwater mercenary sentenced to life in prison On Wednesday, Slatten was sentenced to life in federal prison for initiating a massacre that left 14 Iraqi civilians dead. Hassan Salman is among the Iraqis who were shot during the ambush. Trumps pardon of the Blackwater mercenaries who murdered 14 Iraqi civilians at Nisour Square shows the world what justice means in the United States. He is a regular contributor of diligently researched investigative reports to alternative news media. Blackwater mercenaries sentenced for 2007 Iraq massacre [89][90][91] The panel also recommended that Slatten undergo a re-trial on the grounds that it was unjustifiable to try him with his co-defendants, and that he should have been tried separately. 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. 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,. The Iraqi government and Iraqi police investigator Faris Saadi Abdul stated that the killings were unprovoked. It was an honor to represent these victims and their families. I felt I had done that, and I knew the prosecutors were doing that. [36] Several Iraqi and American investigations have been conducted into the incident. [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. Defense lawyers for the four veterans, who were working as contractors for the State Department at the time of the killings, argued that they had returned fire only after being ambushed by Iraqi insurgents. Although Mohammed was going to return quickly with his sister and Alis cousins for a visit, Mohammed told his son that he could go with him. 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. Luckily, before his SUV was attacked, Mohammed, his sister, and their children had time to duck into the car. [77] "Prosecutors should therefore have built their case against the men without them", a BBC report explained. [78] The opinion elaborated "the government failed to establish that the Iraqi witnesses it presented to the second grand jury were not in any way influenced by their previous exposure to the defendants' compelled statements. The report further said that Blackwater had reported that its forces fired first in over 80 percent of the cases. He saw the man next to him run. [73], The trial was set for early 2010,[74] but the charges were dismissed by United States District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Ricardo Urbina on December 31, 2009, who ruled that the Justice Department had mishandled evidence and violated the guards' constitutional rights. [99], Clemency caused outrage among Iraqi citizens and family members of the victims. Blackwater Mercenaries: NATO's Secret Weapon in Ukraine War Hussein Saheb Nasser, 35, told NBC News by telephone from his home in Baghdad on Wednesday.

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