Interviews with victims and witnesses to the Sept. 16 shooting in Nissour Square bring to light more information about the problems caused by private contractors, which have effectively operated with impunity as they've brought violence and widespread ill will to US operations in Iraq. His tough faade cracked as he described the moment he learned about the shootings. Human Rights Watch reports that some helicopters above ever started shooting at the street below. In August 2017, the D.C. Khalaf turned back toward the Yarmouk road to see what might have spurred the shooting and heard a woman yell, "My son! The incident was allegedly resolved only after another Blackwater contractor pointed his weapon at the man still firing and ordered him to stop. In total, the defendants faced 14 counts of voluntary manslaughter and 20 counts of attempted manslaughter. After the September 11th attacks, Blackwater expanded their security-related work and followed the U.S. military into Afghanistan. Other times, Blackwater guards left a trail of civilian casualties. Black Water is a 2007 Australian horror film written and directed by Andrew Traucki and David Nerlich. His brother left behind a wife and four children. [1][2][3] The killings outraged Iraqis and strained relations between Iraq and the United States. None of the bullets the lab had available could be matched to the rifles used by the guards. [4] In 2014, four Blackwater employees were tried[5] and convicted in U.S. federal court; one of murder, and the other three of manslaughter and firearms charges;[6] all four convicted were controversially pardoned by President Donald Trump in December 2020. Opinion | Trump's Most Disgusting Pardons - The New York Times Human Rights Watch is a 501(C)(3)nonprofit registered in the US under EIN: 13-2875808. Instead, it appears as though the massacre was started by a single bullet fired by Nicholas Slatten, a Blackwater guard. Blackwater was even hired by the Department of Homeland Security during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and according to PBS, collected "more than $70 million in hurricane-related contracts. His brother then headed to the square, where he called Haythem to tell him he had found a charred white car with a license plate number written in the sand. [58] Nor is the US a signatory of the 1977 additional protocol to the 1949 Geneva Conventions in which Article 47 specifies that mercenaries are civilians who "take a direct part in the hostilities" and are "motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain". Raven 23's commander Jimmy Watson reportedly made the "tactical decision" to go to Nisour Square and block traffic for an evacuation route. The case was consolidated with four other cases against Blackwater and on January 1, 2010, the plaintiffs agreed to a settlement and to withdraw their complaint. [68][69], On September 24, 2007, the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior announced it would file criminal charges against the Blackwater staff involved in the shooting, although it is unclear how some of them will be brought to trial. The shooting then turned heavier, Khalaf said, his eyes red-brimmed and serious. We responded to a threat accordingly." The film, an international co-production of Australia and the United Kingdom, is set in the mangrove swamps of northern Australia, and stars Diana Glenn, Maeve Dermody and Andy Rodoreda. Fareed Walid Hassan remembers that "the shooting started like rain." One such incident is the Blackwater massacre, also known as the Nisour Square massacre. All rights reserved. But this was likely due to the fact that the U.S.Iraq Status of Forces Agreement, which took effect in 2009, ended contractor immunity. As shootings in the square were not uncommon, it is unclear whether the shells were from the shooting in question or from other incidents. Black Water (2018) - IMDb One of the Blackwater guards reportedly screamed "No! The Road to Fallujah (2008) - IMDb The 2007 incident in Baghdad's Nisoor Square caused an international outcry. The security industry has evolved drastically since those events, and under the direction of new ownership and leadership, Academi has invested heavily in compliance and ethics programmes, training for our employees, and preventative measures to strictly comply with all US and local government laws.. On January 31, 2009, the U.S. State Department notified Blackwater that it would not be renewing its security contract with the company. [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". ", Failure to Uncover the Fate of Syrias Missing, Human Rights Watch defends the rights of people in close to 100 countries worldwide, spotlighting abuses and bringing perpetrators to justice. In remarks prepared for delivery before a congressional hearing in October, Blackwater chairman Erik Prince claimed company guards "returned fire at threatening targets," including "men with AK-47s firing on the convoy" and "approaching vehicles that appeared to be suicide car bombers." The Iraqi government ordered Blackwater to leave Iraq as soon as a joint Iraqi-U.S. committee finished drafting new guidelines on private contractors under the Iraqi-U.S. security agreement. He learned that all of the bodies there were identified -- except for two that were completely burned with body parts missing. Blackwater Trial: What You Need to Know - NBC News 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. [36], On September 19, as a result of the incident, the United States temporarily suspended all land travel by U.S. diplomats and other civilian officials in Iraq outside Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone. At least four other Iraqis have been reported killed in that incident on Sept. 9. According to CNN, between January and September 2005, Blackwater guards fired their guns 195 times, "an average of 1.4 times a week." That day destroyed me completely, Kinani said. In an instant, Ahmed was shot through the head. The Blackwater Shooting (2007) | The New York Times The New York Times 4.26M subscribers 1.1M views 8 years ago In this 2007 video, witnesses shed light on the killing of 17 Iraqis by American. It's all the news that's fit to watch. From Iraq to New Orleans, it's continued to pull in multimillion-dollar government contracts, mostly without accountability and in near secrecy.. [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. [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 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 State Department has offered family members $10,000 for those killed in the Sept. 16 shootings -- an amount most consider insultingly low and have refused. 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. 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. And in 80% of the cases, Blackwater guards were the ones firing first. The New York Times reports that when Richter confronted Daniel Carroll, Blackwater's Iraq project manager, about this on August 21, 2007, Carroll became incredibly aggressive and told Richter "that he [Carroll] could kill me [Richter] at that very moment and no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq. [82][20] On June 5, 2012, the US Supreme Court declined to review the Appeal Court ruling, allowing the trial to proceed. Slough, Liberty and Heard were convicted on multiple charges of voluntary and attempted manslaughter in 2014, while Slatten, who was the first to start shooting, was convicted of first-degree murder. Multiple civilian deaths linked to 2016-17 British airstrikes against IS in Mosul, Lives torn apart by British airstrikes in Mosul give lie to UKs perfect precision war, Onthe frontlines of the Iraq war 2003-08 in pictures, Theaccidental journalist who covered the war in Iraq, Annalena Baerbocks feminist foreign policy focuses minds in Iraq, Long shadow of US invasion of Iraq still looms over international order, Iraqi customs officials ordered to impose import ban on alcohol, Scores of Iraqis injured in anti-government protests in Baghdad, Who will protect us?: Baghdad residents wait out fighting as city grinds to halt. The State Department announced an American-Iraqi joint commission to investigate both the shooting and the broader issue of employing private security contractors. Meanwhile, it took two weeks before a 10-person FBI team was sent to investigate the massacre for the government. ", Once their name was associated with the Nisour Square massacre, Blackwater ended up changing its name to Xe Services. Fifteen minutes later, the four-car convoy continued around the square and drove away. [79] Three weeks later, Vice President Joe Biden, who was overseeing U.S. policy in Iraq, promised Iraqi leaders the U.S. would appeal the dismissal of these charges. An error occurred while subscribing your email address. However, as The New York Times reports, "not one witness heard or saw any gunfire coming from Iraqis around the square." 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]". 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. This time, only four out of the five guards were charged, since the charges against Ball were dropped based on "prosecutorial discretion. The audit also revealed that Blackwater overbilled at least $70,000 in travel costs. In 2002, Blackwater received its first contract from the United States government. In one of the most in-depth collection of testimonials to date regarding Blackwater, Khalaf was among five witnesses and victims flown from Baghdad to meet with Susan Burke, William O'Neil and their team of lawyers and investigators. [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. He ran three cars back to a white sedan to find a woman holding a young man slumped over and covered with blood. ", The State Department contacted Haythem and asked how much he wanted for compensation. What's Blackwater massacre? Donald Trump pardons guards behind - MEAWW There needs to be a wholesale reform of the way security contractors and those that oversee their work do business. A burnt car at the site where Blackwater guards opened fire on a crowd in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2007. Blackwater Founder Remains Free and Rich While His Former Employees Go However, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki urged the United States to end their contract with Blackwater. Please try again. Ex-Blackwater contractor sentenced to life in Iraq shootings However, according to Reuters, a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit, claiming that "the U.S. government had recklessly violated the defendants' constitutional rights." Meanwhile, although Moonen admitted that he was intoxicated, he maintained that he shot in self-defense. And after the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003, Blackwater won a $25 million contract to provide security for L. Paul Bremer, an American diplomat who led the transitional government following the invasion. The BBC reports that during Slatten's second trial in 2018, a mistrial was declared after the jury deliberated for 16 days. An order issued by the Coalition Provisional Authority in its departing days and still in force gives foreign private contractors immunity under Iraqi law. "[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. When Slatten was tried for a third time, the jury deliberated for five days before finding him guilty of first-degree murder in December 2018. At first, this seemed completely normal for the totally abnormal world of Baghdad in September 2007. They then set off stun grenades to clear the scene. Like Khalaf, Hooby said he never saw anyone on his side of the square make even a threatening gesture toward the Blackwater convoy. "Everyone loved him. [63] The suit was settled for an undisclosed sum in January 2010. That day changed my life forever. 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. The Nisour Square massacre was one of the lowest episodes of the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq.