7 Years After The Blackwater Shootings In Iraq's Nisoor Square, Guards Go On Trial

[Purveyor]

Associated Press June 9, 2014 | 1:48 p.m. EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) — After years of delays, four former guards from the security firm Blackwater Worldwide are facing trial in the killings of 14 Iraqi civilians and the wounding of 18 others.

The guards say they acted in self-defense. Prosecutors say the shootings were unprovoked.

A trial in the nearly seven-year-old case is scheduled to begin with jury selection on Wednesday, barring last-minute legal developments.

Prosecutors plan to call dozens of Iraqis to testify in what the Justice Department says is likely to be the largest group of foreign witnesses ever to travel to the U.S. to participate in a criminal trial.

The violence at the Nisoor Square traffic circle in downtown Baghdad was the darkest episode of contractor violence during the war in Iraq.

more...

http://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2014/06/09/7-years-later-blackwater-guards-go-on-trial

[countryjake]

1. Jury selection began Wednesday...

Trial Begins for Blackwater Guards Over Baghdad Massacre - Andrea Germanos, staff writer
Wednesday, June 11, 2014

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/06/11-2

snip...

The defense argues that Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard, Donald Ball and Nicholas Slatten, who were under contract with the State Department, were acting in self-defense in the face of an insurgent attack when they fired into the busy Baghdad traffic square in 2007.

According to court filings, prosecutors charge that Slatten had previously said that he "wanted to kill as many Iraqis as he could as 'payback for 9/11.'" And according to reporting by the Wall Street Journal, prosecutors charge it was Slatten who sparked the incident by shooting and killing the driver of a Kia sedan that was stopped in traffic.

That assertion is likely to be helped by statements made by another former Blackwater guard involved in the Nisour Square shooting, Jeremy Ridgeway, who pleaded guilty in 2008 to manslaughter charges. In court documents Ridgeway said that the incident was sparked by the Blackwater convoy shooting at the Kia vehicle, which "posed no threat to the convoy."

Slatten faces first-degree murder charges for the killing of the Kia driver, while the other three face voluntary manslaughter charges for the deaths of the other 13 civilians. All four also face attempted manslaughter and weapons violations charges.

The case against the guards was first dismissed in 2009 by a U.S. district court but in 2011 a federal appeals court reinstated the case.

[Jefferson23]

2. Thanks for that info. n/t