U.S. guards guilty of ’07 Iraqi deaths
Iraqis see Blackwater trial as big test of U.S. justice system.
|
WASHINGTON — For 10 weeks this summer in a Washington courtroom, the trial of four former Blackwater security guards offered insight into American accountability to Iraqi civilians in the aftermath of its long military occupation.
Prosecutors flew in dozens of Iraqi witnesses — the most foreigners ever to assist in a Justice Department prosecution — to testify about scenes of graphic violence when a Blackwater convoy in Baghdad opened fire with automatic weapons, sniper rifles and grenade launchers into a crowded square in 2007. Seventeen Iraqis died and at least 17 more were injured, many seriously, according to Iraqi officials.
On Wednesday, thousands of miles and seven years away from that tragic September day, the drama ended with a federal jury convicting all four men in the killings, rejecting defense claims that the guards were responding to what they feared was an attack.
Seen by Iraqis as a major test of the American justice system, the prosecution rekindled traumatic memories of a U.S. invasion and occupation that both sides would have preferred to leave in the past. Nearly 4,500 American service members and more than 100,000 Iraqis died during the eight-year U.S. military engagement.
It took the Washington jury an unusually long period, a total of 28 days, to find Nicholas Slatten guilty of first-degree murder and three other guards — Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard — guilty of voluntary manslaughter and firearm charges.
Slatten could face life imprisonment, while the others face 30-year mandatory minimum sentences, according to prosecutors.
The shootings stirred anti-U.S. passions around the globe and helped undercut Americans’ confidence in the mission in Iraq.
The verdict, which defense attorneys vowed to appeal, comes at a delicate time for the Obama administration, which is relying heavily on the new Iraqi government to help fight Islamic State militants that have crossed the border from Syria and seized vast swaths of Iraq.
Mike McGarrity, a supervisor in the FBI’s Washington field office, said U.S. agents were scrambling Wednesday to locate and notify Iraqi witnesses about the verdicts, but many have been displaced by the Islamic State advance.
Many Iraqis were skeptical that American courts were capable of delivering justice to Iraqi civilians. The insistence by the previous Iraqi government that Americans accused of crimes in Iraq be tried by Iraqi courts was a factor in President Barack Obama’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops in 2011.
The guilty verdicts may ease some of those doubts, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.
Lukman Faily, Iraq’s ambassador to the U.S., called the shootings a “painful incident for Iraqis,” but he said the verdicts would “help build confidence among Iraqis in our overall relationship with America.”
At trial, prosecutors and Iraqi witnesses described the shootings as unprovoked, the result of callous, tr i g g e r- h ap p y security guards who were nervous about intelligence reports that a Kia with a car bomb was looking for a target.
The government presented testimony from 71 witnesses, including 30 from Iraq.
The defense, which put on only four witnesses, characterized the killings as a tragic mistake. Defense attorneys also said they believed the government had