WASHINGTON/BAGHDAD: In a rebuke to government prosecutors, a US federal judge on Thursday dismissed criminal charges against five Blackwater security guards accused of fatally shooting 14 people in Baghdad in September 2007. The ruling sparked outrage among Iraqis and a government spokesman said Iraq would “act forcefully and decisively to prosecute the Blackwater criminals.”
Judge Ricardo Urbina said prosecutors violated the defendants’ rights by using incriminating statements they had made under immunity during a State Department probe to build their case. “The government used the defendants’ compelled statements to guide its charging decisions, to formulate its theory of the case, to develop investigatory leads, and ultimately to obtain the indictment in the case,” Urbina ruled. “In short, the government had utterly failed to prove that it made no impermissible use of the defendants’ statements, or that such use was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The five guards had been charged with killing 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians and wounding 18 others during an unprovoked attack at a busy Baghdad traffic circle using gunfire and grenades. The men had faced firearms charges, and up to 10 years in jail on each of 14 manslaughter counts.
US prosecutors had said that the guards “specifically intended to kill or seriously injure Iraqi civilians,” and according to court documents alleged that one of the guards told another that he wanted to kill Iraqis as “payback for 9/11,” bragging about the number of Iraqis he had shot.
Astonished
In Baghdad, a government spokesman said Iraq would “act forcefully and decisively to prosecute the Blackwater criminals.”
“I was astonished by this decision,” Human Rights Minister Wejdan Mikhail told AFP. “There was so much work done to prosecute these people and to take this case to court and I don’t understand why the judge took this decision,” she said. “One of them has said what happened in Nisur Square, how they killed innocent Iraqi people who were just in their cars without any weapons. I am very astonished and I am waiting for the US Embassy to give me the judge’s decision (in full),” the minister added. “What happened was very bad, because so many innocent Iraqi people — young, students — were shot by someone who liked to shoot unarmed people.”
She said she had requested a meeting with US Embassy officials in Baghdad.
Government spokesman Ali Al-Dabbagh said that an Iraqi investigation had shown that the five guards were unquestionably responsible for the deaths of the civilians.
According to Iraq, 17 civilians were killed in the shooting, but the guards were charged with 14 deaths. “Inquiries carried out by the Iraqi government clearly confirm that the Blackwater guards committed a crime and used weapons when there was no threat necessitating the use of force,” Dabbagh said.
