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| Ex-Blackwater contractor found guilty in 2007 Iraq shooting |
| 2018-12-21 |
| [Rudaw] A former Blackwater security contractor was convicted Wednesday of murder at his third trial in the 2007 shooting of unarmed civilians in Iraq. Nicholas Slatten, 35, of Sparta, Tennessee, was found guilty of first-degree murder in Washington for his role in the shooting, which strained international relations and drew intense scrutiny of the role of American contractors in the Iraq War. Prosecutors charged that Slatten was the first to fire shots in the September 2007 massacre that killed 14 Iraqi civilians at a crowded traffic circle in Baghdad. They alleged that Slatten was unprovoked when he opened fire, first killing 19-year-old Ahmed Haithem Ahmed Al Rubia’y, who was driving his mother to an appointment, prosecutors said. In all, 10 men, two women and two boys, ages 9 and 11, were killed. Eighteen others were maimed. The defense has argued that Slatten and other Blackwater contractors opened fire only after Al Rubia’y’s sedan, seen as a potential suicide boom-mobile, began moving quickly toward their convoy. After the shooting stopped, no evidence of a bomb was found. In 2014, a jury convicted Slatten and three other contractors ‐ Paul Alvin Slough, Evan Shawn Liberty and Dustin Laurent Heard‐ who were part of a four-vehicle convoy that was protecting State Department personnel in the area. An appeals court had overturned that conviction, saying he should have been tried separately from three other men. Slatten was retried last summer, but a mistrial was declared after the jury couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict. The appeals court had ordered that Slatten’s co-defendants be resentenced, and Slough, Liberty and Heard all remain in jug and are awaiting resentencing, prosecutors said. Slatten’s sentencing date has not yet been set. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #4 A page from Mueller and the Dems - keep trying them until you get a conviction. |
| Posted by: Glolush Whusotch4899 2018-12-21 13:00 |
| #3 The contractor is generally blamed for anything that goes badly. FWIW, I seem to remember reading somewhere that BW never lost a principal. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2018-12-21 11:37 |
| #2 1. Suppose the Blackwater personnel had been correct in their assessment and saved State Dept. folks from getting blown up? 2. What were the ROEs in 2007? 3. I suspect other such incidents occurred during this war either by NGOs or the military but went "unreported" and there was no rest of the story or trials. 4. What was the relationship back then between the military and NGO contractors at the time? 5. The "fog of war" operating as well as the "fog of after-action analysis" at work? 6. Given the facts as presented, were I on a jury I'd have the same problems as the hung-jury did. Saw a piece the other day about the taking of Iwo Jima. There were almost no Japanese survivors after the battle but that was a different time and a different war. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2018-12-21 10:52 |
| #1 Read a piece years ago about a US convoy in Iraq stalled due to traffic issues. A road full of Iraqi civilians crossed the road the Americans were on. Everybody was going no place. Then an Iraqi taxi pulled out of line and accelerated toward the Americans. A gunner put some fifty cal rounds into the engine block and the taxi stopped. No bomb. No rational motive. But the driver had a motive, whatever it was. Did he think he'd take one for the team to make the Americans look bad? Did he figure that crashing into a five-ton would inconvenience the US efforts? Did he figure that, whichever it was, or some other thing, was worth his death? If so, he wasn't thinking that when he left home, not anticipating a traffic jam with lots of immobile US vehicles. It came to him with the opportunity. So, I'd be interested in the actions of the car which was--certainly was when they left--on the way to a doctor's office, when the US vehicles were sighted. |
| Posted by: Richard Aubrey 2018-12-21 08:42 |