Correction. Blackwater contractors killed 17. Not murdered The original case against these men was thrown out by a federal judge. It takes an astonishingly gullible mindset to believe four separate men, in the middle of escorting a convoy, would suddenly stop and all four simultaneously and without reason begin a murderous killing spree-- a killing spree in which they retained enough presence of mind to radio for help multiple times. The judge laughed the politically-motivated case out of the courtroom.
Then VP Joe Biden, in an attempt to curry political favor, loudly and publicly forced the Justice Department to engage in a fresh prosecution. The men were convicted -- only to later find out that evidence favorable to the men had been withheld, and the prosecution's star witness -- Iraqi Lt. Colonel Faris Karim of the Iraqi Secret Police, himself had ties to terror groups, and had been involved in witness tampering and destruction of evidence in other cases. That alone warants a pardon, and victims' rights group had long called for such.
The
pardon is preposterous. You know it and I know you know, what we don't know is why anyone is hauling water for Blackwater criminals and trump.
This, for posterity.
December 4, 2008, one guard, Jeremy Ridgeway, agreed to plead guilty and to testify against the other five men: Paul A. Slough, Evan S. Liberty, Dustin L. Heard, Donald W. Ball, and Nicholas A. Slatten.
On December 31, 2009, a U.S. district judge dismissed the manslaughter charges against Slough, Liberty, Heard, Ball, and Slatten because the case against them had been improperly built on testimony given in exchange for immunity.
Three weeks later, Vice President Joe Biden, who was overseeing U.S. policy in Iraq, promised Iraqi leaders that the U.S. would appeal the dismissal of charges.
On April 22, 2011, after closed-door testimony, a U.S. federal appeals court reinstated the manslaughter charges against the five men.
A jury found Slatten guilty of first-degree murder, the other three guards (Slough, Liberty and Heard) guilty of at least three counts of voluntary manslaughter and using a machine gun to commit a violent crime.
Jurors sided with prosecutors' contention that the shooting was a criminal act, not a battlefield encounter gone wrong. Slatten faced a potential sentence of life in prison. 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.
On April 13, 2015, federal district judge Royce C. Lamberth sentenced Slatten to life in prison and the other three guards to 30 years each.
August 4, 2017, the sentences for Heard, Liberty, and Slough were overturned and they were re-sentenced to time already served.
Slatten was also ordered to at best undergo a re-trial on grounds that he should have had a separate trial. 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.
The court then found the mandatory minimum sentences as applied to the defendants were unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishments, over the partial dissent of Judge Judith W. Rogers.
On December 19, 2018, Slatten was found guilty of murder and was sentenced to life in prison on August 14, 2019.
On December 22, 2020,
trump granted full presidential pardons to Slatten, Slough, Liberty, and Heard.
Witness' statements:
Halim Mashkoor told AP Television News: "We see the security firms ... doing whatever they want in the streets. They beat citizens and scorn them...if such a thing happened in America or Britain, would the American president or American citizens accept it?"
Hasan Jaber Salman, a lawyer who was one of the wounded, said that "no one did anything to provoke Blackwater" and "as we turned back they opened fire at all cars from behind"
An Iraqi police officer who was directing traffic at the scene said Blackwater guards "became the terrorists" when they opened fire on civilians unprovoked.
A businessman said he wasn't seeking compensation but only "the truth" from the guards. /
After a group of Iraqi ministers backed the Iraqi Interior Ministry's decision to shut down Blackwater USA's operations in Iraq, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki called on the U.S. government to end its contract with Blackwater and called on Blackwater to pay the families $8 million in compensation.
A U.S. judge's decision to dismiss all charges against Blackwater on January 1, 2010, sparked outrage in the Arab world.
Again, December 22, 2020,
trump granted full presidential pardons to Slatten, Slough, Liberty, and Heard.
How about yourself?
Feeling good things for Blackwater | Academi, and supporting a murdering Blackwater | Academi organaziton is very UN-american. But, you do you.
#BeBest
