For us, for everyone. Before Nord Stream Sabotage, VT RADIO: Exposing East Palestine Train Derailment Disaster with VTs Jack Heart, Dr. Fauci Admits COVID Shots Didnt Have A Chance Of Controlling The Pandemic, More Home Care Services Needed for Military Veterans, VA is Lying Facebook Group is Social Media Done Right, Pregnant Dog Found Starving to Death in Cage Needs Help to be Reunited With Marine Who Rescued Her, Healthy Eating Options More Accessible to Military Community through the Exchange, Israels Illegal Violent Occupation: When De-Escalate Means Ramp Up, Citizen Kane Rupert Murdoch Openly Admits Fox News is Complete Bullshit. The kind of reporting we do is essential to democracy, but it is not easy, cheap, or profitable. In his testimony, Prince noted that, "It seems the ballistics analysis was done to prove the guilt of the Americans, not to just try to identify what happened there." ", Human Rights Watch says the pardons "show contempt for the rule of law.". The report found that the guards fired their weapons 195 times from the beginning of 2005 through the second week of September 2005. When #Blackwater mercenaries were murdering civilians in the #IraqWar, did these voices demand seizure of yachts owned by CEO Erik Prince? After capturing Kherson yesterday, Russian forces even apprehended several suspicious and armed foreign nationals who are currently being interrogated by Russias military intelligence GRU. I had never imagined that Trump or any other politician would affect American justice.". The civil lawsuit was filed as a wrongful death and personal injury suit against the men and companies responsible for my clients losses. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. The fire has since been extinguished after the plant was captured by Russian troops and no radiation leakage has been detected. His domains of expertise include neocolonialism, military-industrial complex, and petro-imperialism. When Mohammed looked to his right, the driver of the car next to him shouted that the soldiers had just shot into another car in front of them. Their bodies were beaten and burned, with their charred corpses then dragged through the city streets before being hanged over a bridge crossing the Euphrates River. The killing of innocent civilians, including two young boys, sparked international outrage and public scrutiny into the use of private military companies . His mother also suffered a stroke, he added. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Nicholas Slatten was sentenced to life in prison without parole after being convicted of murder, while Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard were convicted of manslaughter and weapons charges. As he was leaving, his youngest son, who was affectionately given the nickname Alawi, asked to go with his father. [101][102] The Iraqi Foreign Ministry urged the United States to reconsider, declaring the pardons "did not take into account the seriousness of the crime committed".[103]. Nassar Hamza was 67 years old when he was shot and wounded in the arm. In 2013, Academi subsidiary International Development Solutions received an approximately $92million contract for State Department security guards. On Tuesday, President Trump pardoned four former Blackwater contractors convicted in the killings. The Machiavellian plan of NATOs military strategists is to establish refugee settlements with the humanitarian assistance in the border regions of Ukraines neighboring countries Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria, and then provide guerrilla warfare training and lethal arms to all able-bodied men of military age in order to bleed Russias security forces in the protracted irregular warfare. [78] The opinion elaborated "the government failed to establish that the Iraqi witnesses it presented to the second grand jury were not in any way influenced by their previous exposure to the defendants' compelled statements. [57], In October 2007, the United Nations released a two-year study that stated that private contractors, although hired as "security guards", were performing military duties. Who would be responsible for the myopic and vindictive policy of providing anti-aircraft munitions to Ukraines irregular militias once Kyiv falls and those MANPADS are found in black markets posing a grave risk to civilian airlines across the globe? The Nisour Square Massacre, in which Blackwater mercenaries fired hundreds of rounds in a crowded Baghdad traffic square, killing fourteen Iraqis, including ten women and two children, and . In his meetings with the high-ups in the US national security agencies, Erik Prince reportedly obtained a gentlemans promise, though without any documentary assurances due to the secretive nature of the Faustian pact, that he and his associates would not be held legally liable for the dirty work they do in the Ukraine proxy war. [19] A Blackwater spokeswoman responded to the findings by saying Blackwater "supports the stringent accountability of the industry. [36] Several Iraqi and American investigations have been conducted into the incident. [79] Three weeks later, Vice President Joe Biden, who was overseeing U.S. policy in Iraq, promised Iraqi leaders the U.S. would appeal the dismissal of these charges. The four armed contractors, Scott Helvenston, Jerry Zovko, Wesley Batalona, and Mike Teague, were killed and dragged from their vehicles. [26][27], On September 27, 2007, The New York Times reported that during the chaotic incident at Nisour Square, one member of the Blackwater security team continued to fire on civilians despite urgent cease-fire calls from colleagues. [50], On October 4, 2007, U.S. military reports indicated Blackwater's guards had opened fire without provocation and used excessive force. The Blackwater mercenaries were among the most flagrant killers in Iraq but hardly unique. If it is determined that one person was complicit in the wrongdoing, we would support accountability in that. An Iraqi policeman went over to the car, possibly to help the passenger, but the vehicle kept moving and it looked to the guards as if the policeman was pushing the car towards the Blackwater TST. Mahde Shamke was 25 years old and driving a taxi to support his parents and siblings. [37], Henry Waxman, the chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which held hearings on the use of Private Security Contractors in February 2007, said his committee would hold hearings "to understand what has happened and the extent of the damage to U.S. security interests". On Tuesday, President Trump pardoned 15 people, including Dustin Heard (from left), Evan Liberty, Nicholas Slatten and Paul Slough, the four former government contractors convicted for a 2007 massacre in Baghdad that left more than a dozen Iraqi civilians dead. The headrest next to him where his sister sat had a bullet hole through it. The efforts of the investigators, the prosecutors, and the men and women who supported them was immeasurable. Rather than mitigating the suffering of Ukraines disenfranchised masses held hostage by the Zelensky regime, the self-styled champions of human rights are doing all they can to lure Russia into their bear trap project, a term borrowed from the Soviet-Afghan War of the eighties when Western regimes used Pakistans security forces and generous funding from the oil-rich Gulf States for providing guerrilla warfare training and lethal weaponry to Afghan jihadists to bleed the security forces of former the Soviet Union in the protracted war. Dozens of witnesses were brought to the United States to testify about what happened. The Blackwater incident cost the American military in the Middle East a lot more, experts interviewed by RT believe. The Blackwater guards included Nicholas Slatten, who was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of first-degree murder for his role in the 2007 Nisoor Square massacre, when he and other . I commented when the convictions were first brought that I was certain my clients who were still residents of Iraq were pleased to know that justice had been served. A former security guard working for US mercenary firm Blackwater has been found guilty of murder for his role in a notorious massacre of unarmed civilians in downtown Baghdad in 2007. "I consider what the security company personnel have done is a terrorist act, as many civilians were martyred and wounded," said Hashem, 41, a father of five who was partially disabled and forced to retire after the incident. [77] "Prosecutors should therefore have built their case against the men without them", a BBC report explained. AP Those Warnings Were Ignored, How Russia Will Counterpunch U.S./EU Declaration of War, Khazarian Mafia at War: The Jewish Oligarch Who Planned the Terror Attack on Bryansk, Covert Operations In Vietnam: The Incomplete History of US-Norway Collaboration. Dickinson says the great expense that the FBI put into the prosecution of the case has now come to nothing. Shots were fired everywhere. The pardons have reduced American talk of human rights to mere "slogans," he said, adding, "They prefer animals over humans, and then they talk about human rights, justice and humanity. Mohammed turned his bullet-riddled SUV around and drove back to the closest hospital only a few blocks behind him. [I]f such a thing happened in America or Britain, would the American president or American citizens accept it? The four were convicted at then VP Joe Biden's insistence, and were serving jail terms. [44] Blackwater's operations on behalf of the U.S. Department of State and the CIA may be unaffected by license revocation. Hussein Saheb Nasser, 35, told NBC News by telephone from his home in Baghdad on Wednesday. When the Blackwater contractors were finally convicted seven years later in 2014, that was a sign of relief, but you needed political will for that. He was left with shrapnel in his body from the rocket launched grenade that was fired into his vehicle as he escaped. [4] In 2014, four Blackwater employees were tried[5] and convicted in U.S. federal court; one of murder, and the other three of manslaughter and firearms charges;[6] all four convicted were controversially pardoned[7] by President Donald Trump in December 2020,[8] in violation of international law. The Nisour Square massacre was the FBI's most comprehensive and expensive criminal investigation since 9/11. Their cover: "return of Ukrainians from the French Foreign Legion.". Hassan Salman is among the Iraqis who were shot during the ambush. Mohammed was thrilled when the U.S. entered Baghdad years earlier in 2003. They claimed they were fired on, but. But when the shooting started, his life and the lives of his entire family changed forever. The shooting ended as suddenly as it started. NPR reports that sometime after the Al-Qaeda bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000, where 17 sailors were killed, Blackwater won a $46 million contract from the U.S government for "training sailors in counterterrorism." After the September 11th attacks, Blackwater expanded their security-related work . Again, I knew my clients would be pleased to know that justice had been served and their rights had been protected. "Today we were surprised that the American president issued a decision to pardon these criminals, murderers and thugs," Salman said, speaking from Baghdad. . The Nisour Square massacre occurred on September 16, 2007, when employees of Blackwater Security Consulting (now Constellis), a private military company contracted by the US government to provide security services in Iraq, shot at Iraqi civilians, killing 17 and injuring 20 in Nisour Square, Baghdad, while escorting a U.S. embassy convoy. [3] Erik Prince provided weapons and aircraft to eastern Libyas warlord Khalifa Haftar: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/25/world/middleeast/libya-mercenaries-arms-embargo.html. Machine gunfire would cause his lifeless body to shake in his pool of blood. It is unfortunate and sad that those efforts have now been wasted. That wasnt unusual. These convictions happened under the Obama Administration. Before VT Nuclear Education: The Beirut Nuclear Coverup, The Hidden History of the Incredibly Evil Khazarian Mafia. "[21] Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki harshly criticized the dismissal. The September 16, 2007 shootings by Blackwater mercenaries left 14 Iraqis dead and wounded 18 others in Baghdad's Nisour Square. Sequence of events triggering the Nisour Square massacre, Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, Private Security Company Association of Iraq, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security, Inspector General of the U.S. State Department, United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, "U.S. And it will be a success, Im sure. But unsurprisingly, he did not describe who those thousands of daredevil volunteers willing to sacrifice lives and limbs in a foreign war were. . I felt I had done that, and I knew the prosecutors were doing that. The Kia continued to roll forward after the driver was killed, according to an eyewitness, and Raven 23 continued to fire on it, killing the passenger (the driver's mother); eventually, the Kia was struck by a grenade and was incinerated. Almost everyone who was killed or injured was shot in cars, taxis, or buses. More than 3,000 troops remain in Iraq, according to defense officials, with a drawdown scheduled for January. The result of the long legal battle is that each man was ensured a fair trial, free of partiality and without unjust favor. When he arrived at the hospital, it was a war zone.

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