Legal News

Blackwater in Baghdad: Unsealed Indictment Against 5 Could Arrive Today

By Ashby Jones

Interesting legal news out of Iraq could come down today in the shape of an unsealed indictment against five Blackwater security guards. Last week, news outlets reported that a grand jury indictment had been obtained against the guards for allegedly killing Iraqi civilians in Baghdad’s Nisour Square on Sept. 16, 2007. Click here for the AP report, here and here for NYT reports.

Lawyers for the five men have said they did nothing wrong and that they would surrender to authorities today.

The events of Sept. 16 remain murky. The defendants have said they opened attack after coming under fire; Blackwater has maintained the five did nothing wrong.

In Baghdad, the Times reports, a traffic officer who said he witnessed the killing of 21 people on the day, said the five started “shooting randomly at people without any reason,” he said.

Still, the case could be tough for prosecutors to win. Lawyers for the men are expected to challenge everything from the venue where the charges are being brought, the District of Columbia, to the federal law being used to prosecute the men. In part, they fear that a jury in D.C., where the Bush administration, the Iraq war and Blackwater are particularly unpopular, might favor the prosecution’s case. “These battlefield incident prosecutions are notoriously difficult to win no matter what the forum,” said Tara Lee, a former Navy lawyer and partner at DLA Piper in Reston, Va., to the WSJ.

Immunity for security contractors became a major issue recently in negotiations of the security pact that lays the ground rules for American troops’ continuing presence in Iraq.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on December 08, 2008 (boomark / email).