Robert Young Pelton, a journalist who spent a month with Blackwater in Iraq, said that the guards "use[d] their machine guns like car horns," per Tidings Media. Blackwater's contracts for protecting American diplomats also weren't limited to Iraq. Some of the counts resulted in a mistrial, but none of the defendants got an acquittal on any count. Ali Khalaf Salman, a traffic cop who was there, recounted seeing an American shoot Ahmed. In 2008, the United States Department of Justice filed criminal charges against Donald Ball, Dustin Heard, Evan Liberty, Nicholas Slatten (pictured, center), and Paul Slough, all of whom were Blackwater guards during the Nisour Square massacre. [83], In September 2013, the charges against Ball were dropped. Liberty was found guilty of one firearms offense, 12 counts of attempted manslaughter, and 8 counts of voluntary manslaughter. And in 80% of the cases, Blackwater guards were the ones firing first. The following compilation of footage leaked by Harpers Magazine in 2007. This case study addresses on incident that arose with one such contractor, Blackwater Worldwide. 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. 2007-10-24 Nisour -- footage of the event?-- , You Tube, Nisour Square Massacre Daten ber Ihr Gert und Ihre Internetverbindung, wie Ihre IP-Adresse, Browsing- und Suchaktivitten bei der Nutzung von Yahoo Websites und -Apps. 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 kills 17, bribes to keep Iraqi contracts. [54], Radio logs released in December 2008 seemed to affirm that the guards had been responding to an attack on September 16. Around this time, another Blackwater team of 15 guards known as Raven 23 headed out of the International Zone to offer support, despite the fact that, according to United States v. Slough, they were given an order "not to leave the Green Zone [also known as International Zone]." is not pillaging. From firing rifles into traffic and smashing cars out of the way to running a woman over trying to cross the street, the footage added fuel to evidence that the PMC "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life." In their view, this confirmed that they were under attack by a vehicle bomb, whereupon they fired at the car, killing both people in it as well as the Iraqi policeman. [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. Additionally, the massacre was first reported as a US military victory. [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. NBC News reports that they repainted and repaired their trucks in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, despite the fact that the repairs "essentially destroyed evidence" that would've shown if Blackwater was facing hostile gunfire. The vehicle struck the . department of treasury austin texas 73301 phone number; wii sports club unable to acquire data; randolph high school track and field; huntley ritter parents According to The Seattle Times, the lawsuit was reportedly settled in January 2010, and the U.S. Department of Justice decided not to seek an indictment against Moonen. [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. At the end of the day, none of the Blackwater guards deny what they did, they just deny that there was any wrongdoing. According to Vox, investigators Jean C. Richter and Donald Thomas Jr. discovered, among other issues, that migrant workers were being used as guards for the Blackwater compound and Blackwater guards had neglected to even give them beds to sleep on in their living quarters. [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. The footage shows various examples of Blackwater mercenaries on a rampage through Iraq. After roughly 20 minutes of shooting, the Blackwater guards convoy drove out of the square, leaving multicolored smoke bombs in their wake. 3:28. While they weren't the only private contractor to provide military security, the name Blackwater would soon be so notorious that the company would change their name. After the massacre, the State Department, which had a history of allowing misconduct, did not hold the firm accountable. This contract ended up being extended into 2006 and the total cost of that single contract came out to over $300 million. Rejecting claims from defense attorneys and family members that U.S. prosecutors scapegoated former Blackwater security guard Nicholas Slatten to improve U.S.-Iraqi relations, a federal judge sentenced former Blackwater security guard Nicholas Slatten to life in prison Wednesday for his role in the notorious 2007 Nisour Square . NOW ON DVD www.noendinsightmovie.com The first film of its kind to chronicle the reasons behind Iraq's descent into guerilla war, warlord rule, criminality . 0 rating. A . However, the vehicles had already been repaired and repainted by the time the FBI found them. And despite numerous failures to comply with its security contract, including a failure to maintain the required number of security specialists, the State Department never sought out the $55 million in penalties that Blackwater should've been charged. The Nisour Square massacre was one of the most publicized US crimes of the 8-year Iraq war. Leaked footage of Blackwater contractors in Iraq. What Really Happened in the 2008 Georgian War and Why it Matters "The civilians that were fired upon, they didn't have any weapons to fire back at them. [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. Furthermore, after the shooting at Nisour Square had stopped, a Blackwater convoy (which could have been Raven 23) opened fire on civilians in traffic at another intersection just a few hundred yards away. Blackwater, which has since rebranded itself twice and is now known as Academi, is a private military company that, at the time, had a $1 billion contract with the United States government to provide security services to US officials in Iraq. [41], On September 18, 2007, an Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman said Blackwater is "not allowed to operate anywhere in the Republic of Iraq". [44] Blackwater's operations on behalf of the U.S. Department of State and the CIA may be unaffected by license revocation. "[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. According to CNN, between January and September 2005, Blackwater guards fired their guns 195 times, "an average of 1.4 times a week." Batya founded Reaper Feed to provide unprecedented insight into the lesser-seen sides of human conflict and modern warfare. [I]f such a thing happened in America or Britain, would the American president or American citizens accept it? The Blackwater guards were escorting a diplomatic convoy when, without provocation, they opened fire in the crowded square with machine guns, grenade launchers and other weapons. However, according to Reuters, a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit, claiming that "the U.S. government had recklessly violated the defendants' constitutional rights." Within 20 minutes, 17 civilians had been fatally shot, including two boys who were only nine and eleven years old, and 20 more had been wounded. Various employees of the PMC were also killed during the war in Iraq in their various sole to sole engagements with Iraqi insurgents. Women, children, young people, they shot everyone," said Hassan Jaber Salman, a lawyer who survived the attack with his son, during the trial.. Describing the video dated April 2006 that shows a woman being hit by a Blackwater vehicle, Glass writes: "A woman in a black full-length burka began to cross the street. [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. However, according to "Blackwater" by Jeremy Scahill, the report was written by Darren Hanner, a Blackwater contractor. Some witnesses also claimed that the same Blackwater team subsequently opened fire on another line of traffic after the shooting in Nisour Square. After detailed investigations conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the U.S . Slough, Liberty and Heard were convicted on multiple charges of voluntary and attempted. The incident led to at least five investigations and although the Blackwater guards repeatedly claimed that their actions were justified, several of them came to the opposite conclusion. The Intercept reports that others who tried to run for cover were killed by machine gunfire. 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