More than a year after the deadly shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians, the US Justice Department has indicted five Blackwater Worldwide security guards and is negotiating a plea deal with a sixth, according to people close to the case that strained US diplomacy and rallied anti-American insurgents.
Prosecutors ordered the five guards to surrender tomorrow to the FBI, but details of where and precisely when were still being worked out on Friday, said people related with the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the charges remain secret.
The six guards have been under investigation since a convoy of heavily armed Blackwater contractors opened fire in a crowded Baghdad intersection on Sept. 16, last year. Witnesses said the shooting was unprovoked, but Blackwater, hired by the US State Department to guard US diplomats, said its guards were ambushed by insurgents while responding to a car bombing.
Young children were among the victims and the shooting strained relations between the US and Iraq. Following the shooting, Blackwater became the subject of congressional hearings in Washington and insurgent propaganda videos in Iraq.
The Justice Department obtained the indictment late on Thursday and got it sealed, those close to the case said. The indictment could be made public as early as tomorrow.
The exact charges in the indictment are unclear, but prosecutors have been considering manslaughter and assault charges against the guards for weeks. The Justice Department has also considered bringing charges under a law, passed as part of a 1988 drug bill, that carries a mandatory 30-year prison sentence for using a machine gun in a crime of violence.
One of the six guards has been negotiating to reduce the charges against him in return for cooperation. If completed, such a deal could provide prosecutors with a key witness against the other five.
Others in the convoy have already testified before a federal grand jury about the shooting.
Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd declined comment.
Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said, “We’ve consistently said that we do not believe the guards acted unlawfully. If it is determined they did, we would support holding them accountable.”
Regardless of the charges they bring, prosecutors will have a tough fight. The law is unclear on whether contractors can be charged in the US, or anywhere, for crimes committed overseas. The indictment sends the message that the Justice Department believes contractors do not operate with legal impunity in war zones.
Based at a sprawling compound in Moyock, North Carolinia, Blackwater itself is not a target of the FBI investigation. Company officials have cooperated with the investigation.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is today to inaugurate the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the museum houses thousands of artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years of Egyptian antiquity at a whopping cost of more than US$1 billion. More than two decades in the making, the ultra-modern museum anticipates 5 million visitors annually, with never-before-seen relics on display. In the run-up to the grand opening, Egyptian media and official statements have hailed the “historic moment,” describing the
RSS