Iraqis call for justice in Blackwater deaths
'They must be executed,' says a man who was injured in the incident that left 17 unarmed Iraqis dead. Five guards are to be arraigned in the shootings they say were sparked when they were fired upon.
Reporting from Baghdad — Ask attorney Hassan Jabbar Salman what should happen to five Blackwater Worldwide guards accused of killing 17 unarmed Iraqis and wounding 20 others, including himself, and his answer is simple: They should be hanged.
Salman watched helplessly from his car on Sept. 16, 2007, as Blackwater's Raven 23 convoy opened fire in Baghdad's crowded Nisoor Square, firing automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. Four bullets struck his back, one piercing his left lung. Another bullet remains lodged in his arm. His injuries were so severe that an Iraqi police officer initially told his family he was dead.
"The justice is that they must be executed," Salman said. "They opened fire on innocent, unarmed people."
His choice of words reflects the bitterness that Salman and other victims of the 2007 shootings still feel. So far, their quest for justice has been frustrated.
But today, five guards who were indicted last month by a U.S. federal grand jury are scheduled for arraignment in Washington, each facing 14 counts of voluntary manslaughter and 20 counts of attempted manslaughter. They are also charged with using a machine gun to commit a crime of violence, which carries a 30-year minimum sentence. A sixth guard negotiated a plea agreement in exchange for offering testimony against the others.
The high-profile incident damaged Iraq-U.S. relations and led to widespread calls for reform of private security contractors, who at the time operated free from the threat of prosecution by Iraqi authorities. As the two countries negotiated the security agreement that outlines the withdrawal of U.S. troops by the end of 2011, Iraqis demanded that the pact remove private security contractors' exemption from Iraqi law, a change that took effect Jan. 1.
The North Carolina-based Blackwater and attorneys for the accused guards have defended the incident, saying that they were fired upon by suspected insurgents. A Blackwater spokesperson declined to comment on the case, but the company has stated that its guards are highly trained professionals forced to make split-second decisions in hostile environments. And the Associated Press reported last month that copies of Blackwater radio logs it had obtained showed the guards reported taking "small-arms fire."
But the sixth guard, Jeremy P. Ridgeway, told prosecutors that the gunfire from Blackwater guards was unprovoked, without warning and that the victims did not appear to be armed.
