by Erick Galindo
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Iraqi government will pursue civil charges following U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina’s decision to throw out manslaughter charges against five former Blackwater security guards accused of killing 14 Iraqis on Sept. 16, 2007.
The decision was announced New Year’s Eve here (with time zone difference, New Year’s day in Iraq). In all, 17 Iraqis were killed and 20 wounded in the Baghdad incident.
The decision by Urbina, who sits as the first Hispanic to serve on the District of Colombia Superior Court, was met with disdain and jeers by Iraqis, many of whom view the shootings as a symbol of U.S. disregard for their lives.
Iraq called the decision “unacceptable and unjust.” It said it will ask the U.S. Justice Department to review the criminal case.
Family members of the dead and survivors called the decision a mockery of the justice that the United States was supposed to bring to their country. Officials there say the government will help victims file a lawsuit against the United States “What happened yesterday confirms that the trial was biased,” said Ali Adeeb, a top adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki.
Adeeb promised the Iraqi government will put diplomatic pressure on the United States to ensure that the victims “get justice.”
The 28-year veteran of the court said prosecutors had acted inappropriately in using the guards’ statements, acquired under the auspices of immunity, as evidence.
Judge Urbana also criticized prosecutors for withholding “substantial exculpatory evidence” from the grand jury that indicted the defendants, as well as for presenting distorted versions of witnesses’ testimony and improperly telling the grand jury that some incriminating statements had been made by the defendants were being withheld.
“The explanations offered by the prosecutors and investigators in an attempt to justify their actions and persuade the court that they did not use the defendants’ compelled testimony were all too often contradictory, unbelievable and lacking in credibility,” Urbina wrote.
Prosecutors contended the guards indiscriminately fired on unarmed civilians in an unprovoked assault near a crowded traffic circle.
One of the survivors, Mahdi Abdul Khudor, who lost an eye in the shooting, said the guards burned people inside their cars. The guards claimed they had been am bushed by insurgents and they fired in self-defense.
During the investigation into the incident, the guards, State Department contract employees at the time, were told by State Department investigators that they could be fired if they did not talk to investigators about the case and that whatever they said would not be used against them in any criminal proceeding.
In his 90-page opinion, Urbina found that in a “reckless violation of the defendants’ A panel with perspectives from across the political spectrum will address this report and other studies on the economic effects of immigration reform at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C. that morning.
Last month, U.S. Rep. Luis Gutiérrez constitutional rights,” investigators and prosecutors had extensively used those statements and disregarded “the warning of experienced senior prosecutors” that “the course of action threatened the viability of prosecution.”
The decision is considered a major blow to the Justice Department, which has struggled to distance itself from the stigma left by former Attorney General Alberto Gonzáles. It also brings to a halt one of the highest profile prosecutions to arise from the Iraq war.
The shooting had strained relations between the Iraqi government and the Bush Administration at the time and called into question United States’ growing reliance on private security contractors in war zones.
Blackwater, the much-publicized government contractor, has since been expelled from Iraq and changed its name to Xe Services.
Many of the company’s former guards have switched to other security firms and have stayed in Iraq.
