[21]:116[22] The Blackwater commander, Jimmy Watson, had received an order to stand by and not leave the Green Zone upon reaching a checkpoint, but he made a "tactical decision" to advance to Nisour Square after waiting for a few minutes; upon informing the Blackwater Tactical Operations Center of this, he was ordered to return to the Green Zone. [63], A U.S. judge's decision to dismiss all charges against Blackwater on January 1, 2010, sparked outrage in the Arab world. The men, all military veterans working in Iraq for the private security contractor Blackwater, were convicted of massacring 14 civilians in an unprovoked and unjustified rampage of gunfire and. U.S. troops were coming under fire in Baghdad and major Iraqi cities from the resistance forces. Four Blackwater operatives were found guilty one of murder in a 2007 Baghdad massacre. Then-Vice President Joe Biden held a press conference to tell the citizens of Iraq that they would not be abandoned. Nasser, who attended the 2014 trial in the United States, said his brother's death had broken his father's heart. The aide also said that the Iraqi government was pushing for an apology, compensation for victims or their families and for the guards involved in the shooting to be held "accountable". "How are. Majid survived because he was on the passenger side of the car and was protected from most of the barrage of bullets. We dont have ads, so we depend on our members 35,000 and counting to help us hold the powerful to account. [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 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. The September 16, 2007 shootings by Blackwater mercenaries left 14 Iraqis dead and wounded 18 others in Baghdad's Nisour Square. [42] A spokesman stated that the ban would last for the duration of the investigation, and that it would not be permanent. He saw the man next to him run. [77] "Prosecutors should therefore have built their case against the men without them", a BBC report explained. 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. For us, for everyone. [54] He served one tour in Iraq before being hired as a Personal Security Specialist in Iraq. That day changed my life forever. Lead FBI investigator in Blackwater case likens Iraq massacre to My Lai Trump's pardon of Blackwater 'Four' highlights deep divisions over Iraq Machine gunfire tore through his body. "Trump pardons Blackwater contractors jailed for massacre of Iraq civilians", 23 December 2020. Blackwater mercenaries committed a massacre. Trump pardons Blackwater contractors jailed for massacre of Iraq Volodymyr Zelenskyreassured his compatriots[2] yesterday: Ukraine is already welcoming foreign volunteers who are coming to our country. 'I hope she's scarred for life' Recalling my time as a Blackwater [93], On December 19, 2018, Slatten was found guilty of murder[94] and again was sentenced to life in prison on August 14, 2019. A rocket grenade was fired into the car next to him. Rogers. The majority of the Blackwater mercenaries in Iraq after the . As he was leaving, his youngest son, who was affectionately given the nickname Alawi, asked to go with his father. Blackwater Mercenaries Filmed on a Rampage in Iraq & Shooting Civilians The Blackwater incident cost the American military in the Middle East a lot more, experts interviewed by RT believe. 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. [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 deaths provoked international outrage and raised questions about the use of private security firms in war zones. [66] Howard Krongard, who was appointed Inspector General of the U.S. State Department in 2005,[67] resigned in December 2007 after he was accused by the House Oversight Committee of improperly interfering with investigations into the Blackwater Baghdad shootings. "[51][52][53], On January 19, 2008, The New York Times reported that the contractor responsible for many of the deaths in the engagement, previously known only as "turret gunner no. Its worth recalling that before the Biden-Putin summit at Geneva last June, Russia had a similar troop build-up along Ukraines borders. Mahde Shamke was 25 years old and driving a taxi to support his parents and siblings. Mohammed kept seeing the man on the ground next to him being fired upon as he lay dead. The logs depicted "a hectic eight minutes in which the guards repeatedly reported incoming gunfire from insurgents and Iraqi police". ", Download the NBC News app for breaking news and politics, Jasem Mohammed Hashem, who was working as a police officer when he was shot in the head in the attack, was also disappointed by Trump's decision to free the men who, he said, "opened fire randomly at the citizens.". Bullets were everywhere. Their cover: "return of Ukrainians from the French Foreign Legion.". Iraqi police and Iraqi Army soldiers, mistaking the stun grenades for fragmentation grenades, opened fire at the Blackwater men, to which they responded. It remains unclear whether the team member mistook the civilians for insurgents. . ", Human Rights Watch says the pardons "show contempt for the rule of law.". By Andrew Emett - August 16, 2019 1269 SOURCE NationofChange His mother also suffered a stroke, he added. The incident happened at the height of the "military surge" ordered by the then President George W. Bush to bring the armed resistance against the occupation in Iraq under control. [14], On October 2, 2007, the Democratic staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released a report stating that Blackwater USA guards had used deadly force weekly in Iraq and had inflicted "significant casualties and property damage". 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. The Blackwater guards were firing indiscriminately. 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. security contractors who had previously been sentenced over the death of 17 Iraqi civilians in the 2007 Nisur Square massacre . [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. His domains of expertise include neocolonialism, military-industrial complex, and petro-imperialism. He was driving on flat tires and with a shattered windshield. 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. In 2013, Academi subsidiary International Development Solutions received an approximately $92million contract for State Department security guards. [63] The suit was settled for an undisclosed sum in January 2010. [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 order confines most Americans to a 3.5 square miles (9.1km2) area in the center of the city so that they are unable to visit other areas without traveling in a helicopter. Mohammed forced a doctor to look at Ali. Supporters of the former contractors at Blackwater Worldwide had lobbied for the pardons, arguing that the men had been excessively punished. As Mohammed held his sons hand, he convulsed and died in the back of the ambulance. [9], Blackwater guards claimed that the convoy was ambushed and that they fired at the attackers in defense of the convoy. Victims were everywhere. Dozens of witnesses were brought to the United States to testify about what happened. Ali was the youngest of Blackwaters victims that day. [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. [81] A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found "systemic" errors in the district court's 2009 decision to dismiss charges against the five former Blackwater guards and added "We find that the district court's findings depend on an erroneous view of the law". Before VT Nuclear Education: The Beirut Nuclear Coverup, The Hidden History of the Incredibly Evil Khazarian Mafia. The fire has since been extinguished after the plant was captured by Russian troops and no radiation leakage has been detected. 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. Nisour Square massacre - Wikipedia The Nisour Square massacre was the FBIs most comprehensive and expensive criminal investigation since 9/11. Mohammed met members of the U.S. Army on the streets and handed out candy and juice when he saw them. Constellis did not immediately respond to requests for comment. "[21] Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki harshly criticized the dismissal. The massacre took place in 2007, when the four were working as guards for Blackwater, a private military contractor, on an assignment in Baghdad. 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. By signing up, I agree to receive emails from The Intercept and to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. Although the Pentagons military contractors have been known to be training and advising several brigades of neo-Nazis backed by Ukraines security forces in the Donbas region since 2014, Erik Prince along with his associates from several other private security firms providing military contractors to the US Department of Defense personally visited Kyiv early last month following the Russian troop build-up and met with security officials of the Zelensky regime, according to informed sources.
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