Efforts to Prosecute Blackwater Are Collapsing

[Jeffersons Ghost]

Efforts to Prosecute Blackwater Are Collapsing
By JAMES RISEN
Published: October 20, 2010

WASHINGTON — Nearly four years after the federal government began a string of investigations and criminal prosecutions against Blackwater Worldwide personnel accused of murder and other violent crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, the cases are beginning to fall apart, burdened by a legal obstacle of the government’s own making.
Related

In the most recent and closely watched case, the Justice Department on Monday said that it would not seek murder charges against Andrew J. Moonen, a Blackwater armorer accused of killing a guard assigned to an Iraqi vice president on Dec. 24, 2006. Justice officials said that they were abandoning the case after an investigation that began in early 2007, and included trips to Baghdad by federal prosecutors and F.B.I. agents to interview Iraqi witnesses.

The government’s decision to drop the Moonen case follows a series of failures by prosecutors around the country in cases aimed at former personnel of Blackwater, which is now known as Xe Services. In September, a Virginia jury was unable to reach a verdict in the murder trial of two former Blackwater guards accused of killing two Afghan civilians. Late last year, charges were dismissed against five former Blackwater guards who had been indicted on manslaughter and related weapons charges in a September 2007 shooting incident in Nisour Square in Baghdad, in which 17 Iraqi civilians were killed.

Interviews with lawyers involved in the cases, outside legal experts and a review of some records show that federal prosecutors have failed to overcome a series of legal hurdles, including the difficulties of obtaining evidence in war zones, of gaining proper jurisdiction for prosecutions in American civilian courts, and of overcoming immunity deals given to defendants by American officials on the scene.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/21/world/21contractors.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

[Panaconda]

1. K&R n/t

[Jeffersons Ghost]

2. thanks for the K&R

[Panaconda]

7. No problem

Wish more people were interested in this tale which gives a clear picture of how things really work.

Bump

[Dystopian]

3. KandR.

peace~

[bobthedrummer]

4. K&R + Blackwater USA ( Source Watch profile)

Blackwater USA page (The Center for Media and Democracy/Source Watch.org)
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Blackwater_USA

[Starry Messenger]

5. k & r

[Selatius]

6. This is why Bush-Cheney contracted out the work to begin with: Difficult to hold accountability.

If it were people on the government payroll doing this, it would fall under jurisdiction of an American court rather easily.

[Canuckistanian]

8. Here's a modest suggestion...

STOP HIRING THEM.

[leveymg]

9. These are just the bodyguards. Nobody is even hinting prosecution for the intel crimes of managers

I am losing confidence that the system is even capable of admitting that crimes of state occur, much less imposing accountability..

[bobthedrummer]

17. Went through that "loss of confidence" more than 4 decades ago yet still demanding accountability

since there is no statute of limitations for murder (by a domestic criminal political operative's network originally unleashed via things like The Huston Plan, Operation CHAOS, and the so-called war on the left during 1969) in The United States of America, yet staffers for current members of Congress still act to protect knowledge about this network's history even though it is known to law enforcement and others.

It's not hopeless, but it is a terrible feeling to endure-witnessing the " government protection" that this operative bragged about to a surviving witness in 1969 continuing, as well as the decades of crimes hidden behind the totally corrupted shield of "national security".

[bobthedrummer]

18. truth, kick n/t

[DaveinJapan]

10. K&R bigtime. Important issue that deserves attention! nt

[Solly Mack]

11. k/r

[bobthedrummer]

12. kick

[bobthedrummer]

13. Wikileaks kick n/t

[bobthedrummer]

14. kick + In Contravention of Conventional Wisdom by Cheryl Welsh (January 2008 Mind Justice article)

CIA "no touch" torture makes sense out of mind control allegations
http://mindjustice.org/wisdom.htm

[bobthedrummer]

15. Torturing Democracy.org

http://www.torturingdemocracy.org

[bobthedrummer]

16. one more time, bttt n/t

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

19. W T F?!!!!

[Blue_Tires]

20. no surprise...they are WAY too entrenched politically

All the Pentagon brass and CIA management -- WHERE do you think they go when they retire? Right to the boards of the merc/intelligence firms...