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US military contractor pleads guilty to shooting Afghan detainee

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] US military contractor Don Ayala pleaded guilty Tuesday to voluntary manslaughter for the 2008 shooting an Afghan detainee. Ayala had been charged with second-degree murder for shooting and killing  detainee Abdul Salam in retaliation for Salam's earlier attack on Ayala's fellow contractor Paula Lloyd . At the time of the incident, Ayala was stationed in Afghanistan as a contractor for Strategic Analysis  as part of the US Army's Human Terrain System  program. Ayala was prosecuted under Section 1111 and 3261 of the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA), which allows criminal charges to be brought against military contractors overseas. He made his plea before the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. In December, the US Department of Justice  unsealed indictments  for five Blackwater USA guards allegedly involved in the September 2007 killings of 17 Iraqi civilians, determined by the FBI to be unjustified. Crimes committed by military contractors abroad are considered to be the impetus behind provisions in the US-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement that gives Iraqi courts limited jurisdiction over contractors working there.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on February 05, 2009 (boomark / email).