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President Trump’s pardon of four former Blackwater contractors has sparked outrage in Iraq and in the United States. Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard were convicted in the killing of 14 Iraqis in 2007, when contractors for the mercenary firm opened fire on civilians in Baghdad’s Nisoor Square. The four Blackwater guards were convicted in 2014 after years of painstaking work by investigators and prosecutors to address one of the most infamous chapters of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Paul Dickinson, who was the lawyer for several victims of the Blackwater massacre, says Trump’s pardons are a fresh insult to Iraqis who lost loved ones and who were promised justice would be served. “Now, after the promises that we made to each one of these victims that we were going to hold people accountable for their criminal actions abroad, that has been taken away from them,” he says.
AMY GOODMAN: This is
The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
President Trump’s pardon of four former Blackwater mercenaries convicted for their role in a massacre in Baghdad has sparked outrage in Iraq. The Iraqi Foreign Ministry said the decision violates, quote, “the values of justice, human rights and rule of law” and, quote, “ignores the dignity of the victims,” unquote. 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 Blackwater mercenaries opened fire with machine guns and grenades on a crowded public space in Baghdad, killing 17 unarmed civilians, including women and children, the youngest victim a 9-year-old boy named Ali Kinani.
Relative of Blackwater Victim in Iraq Says Pardons Unfair
In this Sept. 25, 2007 file photo, an Iraqi traffic policeman inspects a car destroyed by a Blackwater security detail in al-Nisoor Square in Baghdad, Iraq. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)
28 Dec 2020 The Associated Press | By Samya Kullab
BAGHDAD Faris Fadel had just one word to describe the recent pardoning by the Trump administration of four private security contractors convicted of killing Iraqi civilians including his brother in a public square 13 years ago: Unfair.
Fadel s brother, Osama Abbas, had been on his way to work that fateful day. He had just crossed a street into Baghdad s Nisoor Square to do a money transfer a last minute change in plans that would cost the 41-year old electrical engineer his life.
Relative of Blackwater victim in Iraq says pardons ‘unfair’ December 26,2020
BAGHDAD- Faris Fadel had just one word to describe the recent pardoning by the Trump administration of four private security contractors convicted of killing Iraqi civilians including his brother in a public square 13 years ago: Unfair. Fadel’s brother, Osama Abbas, had been on his way to work that fateful day. He had just crossed a street into Baghdad’s Nisoor Square to do a money transfer a last minute change in plans that would cost the 41-year old electrical engineer his life. At the time, the Blackwater firm had been contracted to provide security for U.S. diplomats in Iraq. It was four years after the 2003 invasion of Iraq that ultimately toppled Saddam Hussein. The four men, military veterans working as contractors for the State Department, opened fire in the crowded traffic circle killing 14 Iraqis, including a child, and wounding over a dozen more.
US President Donald Trump s pardoning of four security guards from the private military firm Blackwater who were convicted of killing 14 Iraqi civilians was not a positive development, a UN spokesman said."We support what the (UN) High .