The massacre took place in 2007, when the four were working as guards for Blackwater, a private military contractor, on an assignment in Baghdad. The Blackwater incident cost the American military in the Middle East a lot more, experts interviewed by RT believe. After selling Blackwater to a group of investors in 2010, Erik Prince, a former US Navy Seals officer and the swashbuckling founder of Blackwater, has founded another security company Frontier Services Group, registered at Hong Kong Stock Exchange, that advises and provides aviation and logistical solutions to Chinese oligarchs for the security of their lucrative business projects in Africa. 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. [14] The Iraqi government vowed to punish Blackwater. "With those sentences reversed by the stroke of a pen, who will trust the American justice system again?". Their cover: "return of Ukrainians from the French Foreign Legion.". However, after "Raven 23" entered Nisour Square, Watson was ordered to "lock down the traffic circle to expedite the travel of [the other Blackwater team]". Blackwater mercenary Nicholas Slatten sentenced to life in prison for It remains unclear whether the team member mistook the civilians for insurgents. 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. Trump Just Pardoned Those Convicted Killers", "Pardons in killings of Iraqi civilians stir angry response", "Chief of Blackwater Defends His Employees", "Tracing the Paths of 5 Who Died in a Storm of Gunfire", "Blackwater Execs Remain Free as Guards Convicted for Killing 14 Iraqis in Massacre", Use of white phosphorus by the United States, United States and the International Criminal Court, A Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, "The wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time", AfghanIraqi Freedom Memorial (Salem, Oregon), The Iraq War: A Historiography of Wikipedia Changelogs, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nisour_Square_massacre&oldid=1141803510, Violent non-state actor incidents in Asia, People convicted of murder by the United States federal government, Pages using embedded infobox templates with the title parameter, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 26 February 2023, at 22:05. After capturing Kherson yesterday, Russian forces even apprehended several suspicious and armed foreign nationals who are currently being interrogated by Russias military intelligence GRU. ", 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. An ambulance was called, and Ali and Mohammad were rushed to the other side of town. [9], Blackwater guards claimed that the convoy was ambushed and that they fired at the attackers in defense of the convoy. 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. [12] The U.S. State Department has said that "innocent life was lost",[13] and according to The Washington Post, a military report appeared to corroborate "the Iraqi government's contention that Blackwater was at fault". "We've backed off that. "We showed the world that we were going to hold people accountable," he says. [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. Russian Forces strike Ukrainian Armys Electronic Intelligence Center in Kiev Region. 15 years after US Blackwater mercenaries massacred civilians in Baghdad [21]:116, During opening arguments for a criminal trial held in 2014, defense lawyers representing former Blackwater members of Raven 23 argued the men felt the approaching Kia was a credible threat as a possible car bomb, and opened fire in self-defense. He was shot in the abdomen. "Paul Slough and his colleagues didn't deserve to spend one minute in prison," Brian Heberlig, a lawyer for Slough, told The Associated Press. ", "By investigating these crimes and completing legal proceedings, the US complied with its obligations under international law," she added. "Before he died, he went crazy as he used to go out into the street and whenever he saw a young man, he imagined that he was Mahdi," he said. By Andrew Emett - August 16, 2019 1269 SOURCE NationofChange Baghdad massacre: US court finds ex-Blackwater mercenary guilty of ", 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.". [38] Waxman stated that "the controversy over Blackwater is an unfortunate demonstration of the perils of excessive reliance on private security contractors. [33], Three Blackwater guards who witnessed the incident later said that they believed the shootings were unjustified. A rocket grenade was fired into the car next to him. It is unfortunate and sad that those efforts have now been wasted. "Pardoning the Blackwater contractors is an affront to justice and to the victims of the Nisour Square massacre and their families," said Jelena Aparac, Chair . Likewise, the civil case ran through North Carolina state court, was removed to federal court, and then sent back to state court. Mohammed forced a doctor to look at Ali. Ali was slumped over against the glass. 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. Erik Prince, chairman of the Prince Group, LLC and Blackwater USA, tesifies during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in 2007. pardon four Blackwater private security contractors, US announces troop withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan. Supporters of the former contractors at Blackwater Worldwide had lobbied for the pardons, arguing that the men had been excessively punished. IE 11 is not supported. [37], Henry Waxman, the chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which held hearings on the use of Private Security Contractors in February 2007, said his committee would hold hearings "to understand what has happened and the extent of the damage to U.S. security interests". [50], On October 4, 2007, U.S. military reports indicated Blackwater's guards had opened fire without provocation and used excessive force. 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. Each time the criminal charges were seemed lost, the U.S. Department of Justice told them they were not forgotten that we would continue to pursue the convictions of those who committed the crimes against them. The result is not just that we see an injustice in the United States, but that the world must surely see cracks in the pillars of justice upon which our system is based. security contractors who had previously been sentenced over the death of 17 Iraqi civilians in the 2007 Nisur Square massacre . Mohammed and his sister screamed for their children to get down. How is Eric Prince still breathing? Nicholas Slatten, 35, was a former security guard at the private US military firm Blackwater and was based in Baghdad. "It was obviously excessive", a U.S. military official speaking on condition of anonymity told the Washington Post. Mohammed met members of the U.S. Army on the streets and handed out candy and juice when he saw them. That changed yesterday with President Donald Trumps pardons. ", Human Rights Watch says the pardons "show contempt for the rule of law.". Only. On January 31, 2009, the U.S. State Department notified Blackwater that it would not be renewing its security contract with the company. The Blackwater mercenaries were among the most flagrant killers in Iraq but hardly unique. Before. He was told that he had to go to a neurologic hospital on the other side of Baghdad. Mohammed was glad Saddams reign of terror was finally ending. 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. 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. Raven 23 "returned defensive fire" and withdrew from Nisour Square with one of its BearCat vehicles in tow. Now justice has been undone by the stroke of a pen," Sarah Holewinski, the organization's Washington director, said in a statement. But when the shooting started, his life and the lives of his entire family changed forever. )[60], Baghdad resident Halim Mashkoor told AP Television News, "We see the security firms doing whatever they want in the streets. [41], On September 18, 2007, an Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman said Blackwater is "not allowed to operate anywhere in the Republic of Iraq". "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.". 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 . The ones who were killed on the street were shot running for their lives. RT has asked experts to share their thoughts on what the incident meant for Washington's Middle East policy and the likelihood of another tragedy like this. 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. [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. [70] A second civil lawsuit filed jointly by the families of six victims against Blackwater was settled on January 6, 2012 for an undisclosed sum. Survivors and victims' relatives of a 2007 shooting in Iraq by Blackwater contractors meet with United States prosecutors in Baghdad in 2008. "Today we were surprised that the American president issued a decision to pardon these criminals, murderers and thugs," Salman said, speaking from Baghdad. As Mohammed held his sons hand, he convulsed and died in the back of the ambulance. Notorious mercenaries convicted of massacre in Iraq pardoned by Trump Trump's pardon of Blackwater 'Four' highlights deep divisions over Iraq Victims were everywhere. Dickinson says the great expense that the FBI put into the prosecution of the case has now come to nothing. They beat citizens and scorn them. "They prefer animals over humans, and then they talk about human rights, justice and humanity," said an Iraqi man whose brother was among those killed in 2007. And it will be a success, Im sure. But unsurprisingly, he did not describe who those thousands of daredevil volunteers willing to sacrifice lives and limbs in a foreign war were. Rather than mitigating the suffering of Ukraines disenfranchised masses held hostage by the Zelensky regime, the self-styled champions of human rights are doing all they can to lure Russia into their bear trap project, a term borrowed from the Soviet-Afghan War of the eighties when Western regimes used Pakistans security forces and generous funding from the oil-rich Gulf States for providing guerrilla warfare training and lethal weaponry to Afghan jihadists to bleed the security forces of former the Soviet Union in the protracted war. 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. Civilian Warriors: The Inside Story of Blackwater and the Unsung Heroes I am overwhelmed with emotion at this fantastic news.. 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. The order did not say when the suspension would expire. [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. The U.S. remains one of the notable holdouts of the 2001 UN treaty known in full as the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries and it is unlikely we will ever join. Paul Dickinson is a lawyer who represented six Iraqi families in a civil lawsuit against Blackwater and its founder, Erik Prince (who is the brother of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos). Blackwater is an American private military company . Russian-American political scientist Malek Dudakov called the shooting a landmark event and a major international scandal. [72] A sixth Blackwater guard, Jeremy Ridgeway of California, struck a deal with prosecutors on December 4, 2008 and pleaded guilty to one count each of voluntary manslaughter, attempted manslaughter, and aiding and abetting,[72][3] and agreed to testify against the other five men. Adela Sulimanis a London-based reporter for NBC News Digital. Dickinson says that the victims' families are likely to feel let down and abandoned by the U.S. government. The hallways were full. The man that just spoken to him was dead. The U.S. legal system, a pillar of fairness in the world, had worked. "The civilians that were fired upon, they didn't have any weapons to fire back at them. In fact, private military contractors in close coordination and consultation with covert operators from CIA and Western intelligence agencies are not only training Ukraines conscript forces in the use of caches of Stingers and Javelins provided by Germany and the rest of the European nations as military assistance to Ukraine but are also directing the whole defense strategy of Ukraine by taking an active part in combat operations in some of the most hard-fought battles against Russias security forces north of Kyiv and at Kharkiv and Donbas. While the #RussianOligarchs are vile post-Soviet capitalists, the hypocrisy of the US media is revealing. [36] Several Iraqi and American investigations have been conducted into the incident. Blackwater mercenary sentenced to life in prison - NationofChange 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. In the sheer desperation to inflict maximum material damage to Russias security forces, however, NATO appears to have breached its own long-standing convention of curbing the proliferation of anti-aircraft munitions. A federal district court judge sentenced four former Blackwater Worldwide mercenaries to lengthy prison terms on Monday for their role in the Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad, Iraq in 2007. Mahde Shamke was 25 years old and driving a taxi to support his parents and siblings. Iraqi traffic police initially tried to wave down the Blackwater men that there was no threat, but they too had to run for cover. [45] Also, it is not clear whether the license revocation is permanent. In 2002, Blackwater received its first contract from the United States government. The pardons could damage the United States' reputation abroad, as they undo the significance of the convictions, which had demonstrated that U.S. military contractors could be held accountable if they conducted criminal actions. The Nisour Square massacre was the FBI's most comprehensive and expensive criminal investigation since 9/11. Almost everyone who was killed or injured was shot in cars, taxis, or buses. In his testimony, Prince noted that, "It seems the ballistics analysis was done to prove the guilt of the Americans, not to just try to identify what happened there." courts. The Nisour Square massacre was one of the lowest episodes of the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq. Blackwater and the Corporate Mercenaries who've - NationofChange 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. Being so close to the Green Zone, he thought someone important might be entering or leaving the area. In this 2007 video, witnesses shed light on the killing of 17 Iraqis by American contractors in Baghdad.Read the article here: http://nyti.ms/1u1cNzySubscrib. 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. By signing up, I agree to receive emails from The Intercept and to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. [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. No wonder Russia formally issued an ultimatum on Tuesday, March 1, that it would target the hub of covert warfare. What takes place doesnt mention Russian soldiers but others preventing citizens from escaping. Ukraine War Anniversary: UN and China Work for Peace, Devilish Zelensky, Kiev Hid Its Dead Soldiers in the Ravines. Nasser, who attended the 2014 trial in the United States, said his brother's death had broken his father's heart. 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. Monday's sentencing was. Prosecutors asserted the heavily armed Raven 23 Blackwater convoy launched an unprovoked attack using sniper fire, machine-guns and grenade launchers. The Untold Truth Of The Blackwater Massacre - Grunge His mother also suffered a stroke, he added. on about your day, ask yourself: How likely is it that the story you just read would have been produced by a different news outlet if The Intercept hadnt done it? 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. 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. 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. [6][85][86] Jurors sided with prosecutors' contention that the shooting was a criminal act, not a battlefield encounter gone wrong. Prosecutors argued the men did not face hostile gunfire when they began shooting, and continued to shoot despite the lack of threats. An Iraqi looks at a burned car in Nisour Square in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Yarmukh, on Sept. 24, 2007, eight days after Blackwater guards who were escorting U.S. Embassy officials opened fire there. Mohammed knew his sons injuries were fatal, but he had to try. [92] However, the court then found that the mandatory minimum sentences as applied to the defendants were unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishments, over the partial dissent of Judge Judith W. He lay in the hallway for an hour before he died. Although NATO powers did provide Stingers to their jihadist proxies that helped turn the tide in the Soviet-Afghan war in the eighties, since then, despite providing anti-tank munitions and rest of weapons to militant groups during the proxy wars in Libya and Syria, Western powers have consistently avoided providing MANPADS to proxy forces, because such deadly anti-aircraft munitions could become a long-term threat not only to military aircraft but also to civilian airlines. U.S. military reports appear to corroborate the Iraqi government's contention that Blackwater was at fault in the incident. An initial prosecution was thrown out by a federal judge sparking outrage in Iraq but the then vice-president, Joe Biden, promised to pursue a fresh prosecution, which succeeded in 2015. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. [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. Mohammed would look to see what was happening. [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. Three Ex-Blackwater Guards Are Resentenced in Iraq War Massacre The men will serve about half of their original 30-year sentences for their roles in a 2007 shooting of unarmed civilians in Iraq . [21][75] In the memorandum opinion, Judge Urbina ruled the cases against Slough, Liberty, Heard, Ball, and Slatten had been improperly built on testimony given in exchange for immunity;[76] that evidence included statements the guards had been compelled to give to State Department investigators, and as these statements would have been self-incriminating, they could not be used as evidence under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. https://t.co/O88HKyb3wd, Kevin Reed | wsws.org (@KevinReedWSWS) March 4, 2022. [17], Just before noon on September 16, 2007, a car bomb exploded near the Izdihar Compound where US and Iraqi officials were meeting,[20]:547 and a 19-man Blackwater Tactical Support Team (TST) consisting of a convoy of four trucks, answering to the call sign "Raven 23", took up positions on the south side of Nisour Square to secure an evacuation route for the US officials and another Blackwater team providing security for them. Again be warned it is ugly. [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. This includes the right to see perpetrators serve punishments proportionate to the seriousness of their conduct. 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. Spring flowers are planted in Nisour Square, the site of a deadly shootout by Blackwater private security contractors in 2007, in Baghdad on April 15, 2015.