Former Blackwater contractor found guilty of murder in Iraq massacre

More than a dozen unarmed civilians died in the mass shooting in a Baghdad traffic circle in 2007.</s>WASHINGTON — A former Blackwater Worldwide contractor accused of firing the first rounds in a mass shooting that killed more than a dozen unarmed civilians in a Baghdad traffic circle in 2007 was found guilty of one count of murder Wednesday.

Nicholas Slatten was found guilty of first-degree murder by a unanimous federal jury in the death of Ahmed Haithem Ahmed Al Rubia’y.

Slatten, 35, wearing a blue suit and blue tie, was smiling on and off throughout the short hearing, and shrugged to his attorneys when he heard the verdict. No sentencing date has been set.

Slatten was first charged in 2008 along with three other contractors for Blackwater, a private military company, but that case was thrown out.

When the case was brought back in late 2013, Slatten was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. The other three guards were convicted of charges including manslaughter and attempted manslaughter.

The four men were part of a Blackwater security team code-named Raven 23, who shot 31 innocent Iraqis in the traffic circle of Nisur Square in September 2007. The shooting happened after a car bomb exploded in downtown Baghdad.

Fourteen of the Iraqis, including women and children, died.

Prosecutors in the 2013 trial said Slatten was the person who “initiated the entire incident” when he fired the first shots “without justifications.”

But in 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals threw out Slatten’s murder conviction and said he deserved a new trial.

That second trial ended in September 2018 when a mistrial was declared after weeks of the jury being unable to reach a unanimous verdict.

Blackwater was founded by Erik Prince, who is the brother of Education Secretary Betsy Devos. Since the 2007 shooting, Prince sold the company, which reorganized and now exists as Academi.

Gary Grumbach reported from Washington, D.C., Elisha Fieldstadt reported from New York.</s>A former Blackwater security guard was convicted Wednesday of murder in his third trial over his involvement in a 2007 Baghdad traffic-circle shooting that marked one of the lowest points of the Iraq War.

Nicholas Slatten, who was 23 years old at the time of the shooting, was found guilty of one count of murder by a jury after a monthlong trial in federal court in Washington.</s>A former Blackwater security contractor has been convicted of murder at his third trial in the 2007 shooting of unarmed civilians in Iraq.

Nicholas Slatten, of Sparta, Tennessee, was found guilty of first-degree murder Wednesday in Washington.

Prosecutors say Slatten was the first to fire shots in the killings of 14 Iraqi civilians at a crowded traffic circle in Baghdad. The shooting strained relations with Iraq and drew intense scrutiny of the role of American contractors in the Iraq War.

The defense had argued that Slatten opened fire because he thought a bomb-laden car was headed toward his convoy.

An appeals court had overturned his 2014 conviction, saying he should have been tried separately from three other men. A jury couldn't reach a verdict in his second trial last summer.</s>WASHINGTON (AP) — A former Blackwater security contractor was convicted Wednesday of murder at his third trial in the 2007 shooting of unarmed civilians in Iraq.

Nicholas Slatten, of Sparta, Tennessee, was found guilty of first-degree murder in Washington for his role in the shooting, which strained international relations and drew intense scrutiny of the role of American contractors in the Iraq War.

Prosecutors charged that Slatten was the first to fire shots in the September 2007 massacre that killed 14 Iraqi civilians at a crowded traffic circle in Baghdad. They alleged that Slatten was unprovoked when he opened fire, first killing 19-year-old Ahmed Haithem Ahmed Al Rubia'y, who was driving his mother to an appointment, prosecutors said.

In all, 10 men, two women and two boys, ages 9 and 11, were killed. Eighteen others were injured.

The defense has argued that Slatten and other Blackwater contractors opened fire only after Al Rubia'y's sedan, seen as a potential suicide car bomb, began moving quickly toward their convoy. After the shooting stopped, no evidence of a bomb was found.

In 2014, a jury convicted Slatten and three other contractors — Paul Alvin Slough, Evan Shawn Liberty and Dustin Laurent Heard— who were part of a four-vehicle convoy that was protecting State Department personnel in the area. An appeals court had overturned that conviction, saying he should have been tried separately from three other men.

Slatten was retried last summer, but a mistrial was declared after the jury couldn't reach a unanimous verdict.

The appeals court had ordered that Slatten's co-defendants be resentenced, and Slough, Liberty and Heard all remain in custody and are awaiting resentencing, prosecutors said.</s>The Western Journal has not reviewed this Associated Press story prior to publication. Therefore, it may contain editorial bias or may in some other way not meet our normal editorial standards. It is provided to our readers as a service from The Western Journal.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former Blackwater security contractor has been convicted of murder at his third trial in the 2007 shooting of unarmed civilians in Iraq.

Nicholas Slatten, of Sparta, Tennessee, was found guilty of first-degree murder Wednesday in Washington.

Prosecutors say Slatten was the first to fire shots in the killings of 14 Iraqi civilians at a crowded traffic circle in Baghdad. The shooting strained relations with Iraq and drew intense scrutiny of the role of American contractors in the Iraq War.

The defense had argued that Slatten opened fire because he thought a bomb-laden car was headed toward his convoy.

An appeals court had overturned his 2014 conviction, saying he should have been tried separately from three other men. A jury couldn’t reach a verdict in his second trial last summer.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.</s>WASHINGTON – A former Blackwater Worldwide security guard has been convicted a second time on a charge that he instigated a mass shooting in Iraq more than a decade ago.

A federal jury convicted Nick Slatten of Sparta, Tennessee, on Wednesday on a murder charge for his role in a deadly shooting rampage that killed 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians and wounded 17 others. It was the third time Slatten had stood trial on the charge.

Jurors deliberated for four days before returning their verdict, which came at the close of a six-week trial in U.S. District Court in Washington – and just three months after a previous trial on the same charge ended in a hung jury.

Slatten disputed prosecutors’ arguments that he fired the opening shot that touched off the rampage, which became one of the flashpoints in the war between Iraq and a U.S.-led coalition.

Another guard, Paul Slough of Keller, Texas, said on multiple occasions that he fired the opening shot, not Slatten. Eyewitnesses also pointed to Slough as the initial shooter.

But prosecutors countered that Slough’s statements had been inconsistent. He initially denied to investigators that he had opened fire, then later recanted and claimed he fired the first shots, they said.

During his first trial, Slatten was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison in 2014 for his role in the shooting.

A federal appeals court threw out Slatten's conviction last year and ordered that he receive a new trial because he had not been allowed to introduce evidence that Slough fired the first shots. The government’s case hinged on the allegation that Slatten was the initial shooter, the appeals court said.

At his second trial, prosecutors argued that Slatten and other guards opened fire without provocation on innocent Iraqis and used excessive force. Slatten, prosecutors contended, fired the first shots, killing a young, unarmed Iraqi medical student.

That trial ended in a hung jury in September when jurors were unable to reach a unanimous verdict after 16 days of deliberations.

The deadly rampage in which Slatten was charged happened in 2007 in Baghdad’s Nisour Square and already has been the subject of investigations by the military, a congressional panel, the FBI and others.

But details of what happened remain in dispute.

Slatten and three other guards – Slough, Dustin Heard of Maryville, Tennessee, and Evan Liberty of Rochester, New Hampshire – were all former armed services members working as private security guards for Blackwater, now known as Academi. The guards’ Raven 23 security team was under contract by the State Department.

On Sept. 16, 2007, their convoy traveled to a crowded traffic circle in downtown Baghdad as part of the effort to evacuate a U.S. diplomat.

At some point, the guards opened fire with machine guns and grenade launchers. They say the shooting started only after a white Kia sedan driven by the Iraqi medical student lurched out of stopped traffic and approached their four armored vehicles. The men had received intelligence reports that a white Kia might be used as a car bomb, so they feared they were under attack.

No evidence of a bomb was ever found.

More: Trial of former Blackwater guard charged in mass shooting in Iraq ends in a hung jury

More: Former Blackwater guard goes on trial for second time for role in mass shooting in Iraq

More: Former Blackwater security guard Nick Slatten: 'I am a POW in my own country'</s>WASHINGTON — A former Blackwater security guard was convicted of first-degree murder Wednesday for killing one of 14 unarmed civilians in a barrage of gunfire in a crowded Baghdad traffic circle in 2007, an episode that drew international condemnation during the Iraq War.

It was the second time a federal jury in Washington convicted Nicholas Slatten, 35, of murder in the death of 19-year-old Ahmed Haithem Ahmed Al Rubia’y. His 2014 conviction was overturned on appeal, and a second trial last summer ended in a hung jury. Slatten now faces a mandatory life sentence without parole.

The jury foreperson told The Washington Post that jurors rejected Slatten’s claim that he fired on Al Rubia’y in self-defence. “In our determination, there were no justifiable deaths,” the foreperson said. “No justifiable shooting.”

The outcome brings a muted end to killing that triggered diplomatic and humanitarian protests over the U.S. government’s use of private military forces and marked one of the lowest points of the Iraq War.

Three other Blackwater guards who were part of Slatten’s convoy also were convicted in 2014, of manslaughter and other charges. The verdicts for Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard were not reversed, but the 30-year sentences they received were vacated on appeal. No sentencing date has been set for any of the four defendants, all of whom are in custody.

In Nisour Square, on Sept. 16, 2007, Slatten was one of 19 Blackwater security contractors in a convoy of four heavily armed trucks using the call sign Raven 23. But after a car bombing earlier in the day, the team disregarded an order to stay in the Green Zone, and it set up a blockade in the square, prosecutors said.

A white Kia, driven by Al Rubia’y with his mother in the passenger seat, headed toward the blockade. Prosecutors alleged Slatten, of Sparta, Tennessee, fired the first shots into the Kia and intentionally set off a rampage in which more than 30 people were shot, 14 fatally.

The Blackwater guards claimed that they feared the Kia might be used as a car bomb and that after they began firing on the Kia, the guards took small-arms fire from other sources, which disabled one of the Blackwater trucks. The guards then fired into a bus and other vehicles, compounding the carnage.

“There had been a lookout for a white Kia,” the jury foreperson told The Post. “But there’s a million Kias in Iraq; you don’t just shoot every white Kia.”

The foreperson said the jury “didn’t believe the white Kia presented or could be perceived as a threat. And we didn’t perceive that the convoy was taking small-arms fire.” The foreperson said the jury believed shrapnel from grenades launched by the Blackwater guards damaged their own vehicle.

The foreperson spoke on the condition of anonymity, due to concern about possible retribution from supporters of the Blackwater guards.

In 2014, a jury in Washington convicted Slatten of murder and Slough, Liberty and Heard of manslaughter and attempted manslaughter. One other guard reached a plea deal for reduced sentences.

In August 2017, a federal appeals court tossed Slatten’s life sentence and ordered a new trial, saying he should have been tried separately from Slough, 39. Slough had told investigators days after the shootings that he, not Slatten, fired the first rounds.

Slatten then received a retrial that ended in a hung jury in September, with the defence saying the convoy members had been acting in self-defence.

Slatten’s defence team declined to comment after the verdict.

At trial, Slatten’s defence seized on shifting statements by Blackwater convoy members who had testified against Slatten in his earlier trials.

The convoy included Jimmy Watson, the leader of the four-vehicle convoy and Slatten’s vehicle mate. Watson retreated from earlier testimony to a grand jury in which he said he had heard Slatten fire first. Jeremy Ridgeway pleaded guilty to manslaughter and testified for prosecutors in a plea deal.

Slatten’s lead defence lawyer Dane Butswinkas said to jurors in his closing argument, “Mr. Al Rubia’y’s death is a tragedy. There’s no doubt about that. But this is not a reason to compound the tragedy, by sending an innocent person to prison for as long as Mr. Ridgeway would have gone had he not cooperated.”

Prosecutors said Slatten acted out of general hatred for Iraqis and a misguided desire for revenge for the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

They said that Ridgeway’s shifting memory was mistaken and that Watson’s actions were an ongoing attempt to cover up responsibility for the attacks.

Referring to Slatten, prosecutor Fernando Campoamor-Sanchez told jurors, “You know that this man took this sniper rifle, and through this scope he took aim at Ahmed’s head, and he fired. Boom. And he fired again. Boom. And why?” Campoamor-Sanchez said in his closing argument. “Because, ladies and gentlemen, he thought he could get away with it. Nobody would know. He would never have to answer to people like you sitting in this jury room today.”

The foreperson said, “We quickly got rid of self-defence” as a cause for the killings. The jury was aware that Slough had been convicted, that Ridgeway had pleaded guilty and that Watson had been granted immunity. They did not know that Liberty and Heard had also been convicted, the foreperson said.

The jury deliberated for five days after a five-week trial.

Slough, Liberty and Heard received 30 years – twice the maximum punishment for manslaughter alone — after being convicted of using military firearms while committing a felony, an enhanced penalty that was primarily aimed at gang members and had never been used against security contractors given military weapons by the U.S. government.

The appeals court ruled that the punishment meted out to the three guards violated a constitutional prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Charges were first brought against six Blackwater employees in 2008, but the extraordinary prosecution suffered numerous turns and setbacks.

A federal judge initially threw out the other indictments, saying prosecutors improperly relied on statements the guards gave State Department investigators immediately after the shooting, believing the statements would not be used in court.

An appeals panel reversed that ruling in 2011, clearing the way for prosecutors to obtain fresh indictments against Slatten and the three others.

However, prosecutors took so long to charge Slatten that the statutory time limit for bringing a manslaughter charge had expired, an error the appeals panel said also stemmed from an errant court ruling, a court found.

The Justice Department responded by charging Slatten, a former Army sniper, with first-degree murder, which has no statute of limitations.

The foreperson was troubled that Slatten faced only one charge and no lesser alternatives, particularly since the only sentence would be a mandatory life term. The foreperson was unsure whether Slatten truly premeditated the shooting, other than the moments staring down the scope as the white Kia rolled toward the convoy.

“I think the murder one,” the foreperson said, “I understand it, but there’s a bit of unjustness to it.”

Thirty Iraqi shooting survivors and relatives of victims testified in person in a 2014 trial, marking the largest number of foreign witnesses to travel to the United States for a criminal trial, prosecutors said at the time.</s>Nicholas Slatten, a 35-year old former security guard for the private mercenary firm Blackwater, was found guilty of first-degree murder on Wednesday in the third trial stemming from his role in the notorious 2007 Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad, Iraq that left 14 Iraqis civilians dead and another 17 injured.

The jury's verdict on Wednesday came after a three-judge federal appeals court panel ordered a retrial for Slatten and resentencing for three of his Blackwater colleagues—Dustin Heard, Evan Liberty, and Paul Slough—in August of 2017. Slatten's second murder trial ended in a mistrial in September. While no sentencing date has been set, the murder charge means he faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison.

Outlining the government's evidence for the case, the U.S. Attorney's office in D.C. said in a statement:

[At] approximately noon on Sunday, Sept. 16, 2007, several Blackwater security contractors, including Slatten and his former co-defendants, opened fire in and around Nisour Square, a busy traffic circle in the heart of Baghdad. When they stopped shooting, 14 Iraqi civilians were dead. Those killed included 10 men, two women, and two boys, ages 9 and 11. Another 18 victims were injured. According to the evidence, Slatten was the first to fire, without provocation, killing Ahmed Haithem Ahmed Al Rubia'y, an aspiring doctor, who was driving his mother to an appointment.

Slatten's murder conviction is for Ahmed's death. As the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday:

Patrick Martin, who is chief of the criminal division at the U.S. Attorney's office in Washington, D.C., told jurors last month that Mr. Slatten had fired the first shots at the traffic circle, setting off the chaotic episode. Mr. Slatten carefully planned to kill the driver of a white Kia, acting out of "hate, prejudice, and some twisted notion of revenge," Mr. Martin said in opening statements.

"You know that this man took this sniper rifle, and through this scope he took aim at Ahmed's head, and he fired. Boom. And he fired again. Boom. And why?" prosecutor Fernando Campoamor-Sanchez reportedly said to jurors in his closing arguments. "Because, ladies and gentlemen, he thought he could get away with it. Nobody would know. He would never have to answer to people like you sitting in this jury room today."

Slatten is being held until he is sentenced by Judge Royce C. Lamberth, according to the U.S. Attorney's office—which added that "Slough, Liberty, and Heard remain in custody and their re-sentencing proceedings remain pending before Judge Lamberth." Meanwhile, Blackwater's infamous former CEO, Erik Prince, has yet to face any consequences for incident.

"Just as with the systematic torture at Abu Ghraib, it is only the low level foot-soldiers of Blackwater that are being held accountable," journalist Jeremy Scahill—author of the book Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army—wrote for The Intercept after the first trial in 2014. "Prince and other top Blackwater executives continue to reap profits from the mercenary and private intelligence industries."

Although Prince has since sold off Blackwater, which relaunched as Academi, the billionaire war profiteer—who happens to be the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos—served as an adviser to President Donald Trump's transition team and has continued to advocate for the use of mercenaries, urging the administration to privatize the seemingly endless war in Afghanistan.</s>A former security guard for the US firm Blackwater was found guilty of murder on Wednesday for his role in a notorious massacre of unarmed civilians in downtown Baghdad in 2007.

Nicholas Slatten, 35, was convicted of first-degree murder by a federal jury in U.S. District Court in Washington after five days of deliberations.

Slatten was convicted of killing Ahmed Haithem Ahmed Al Rubia'y, 19, an aspiring doctor who was one of more than a dozen civilians killed by Blackwater guards in Baghdad's Nisour Square on September 16, 2007.

While escorting a diplomatic convoy, Blackwater guards opened fire in the bustling square with sniper rifles, machine guns and grenade launchers - allegedly without provocation - leaving at least 14 civilians dead and at least 18 wounded.

The Iraqi government says the toll was higher.

The shooting deepened the resentment of Americans in Iraq four years after U.S. forces toppled dictator Saddam Hussein and raised questions about the expanded use of armed contract guards by the US government.

The US Attorney's Office presented testimony from 34 witnesses during the trial, including four who came to the United States from Iraq to testify.

According to the government's evidence, Slatten, of Sparta, Tennessee, was the first to open fire.

No date was set for his sentencing. The U.S. Attorney's Office said the murder charge calls for a mandatory sentence of life in prison.

It was Slatten's third trial on the charges. His first conviction was thrown out and the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict at his second trial.

Slatten was one of four Blackwater guards who were found guilty in 2014.

He was originally sentenced to life in prison while the three others were given 30-year prison sentences

An appeals court has ordered that the three other Blackwater guards be resentenced.

They are currently in custody pending resentencing.
In a third trial, former Blackwater private military contractor Nicholas Slatten is convicted on one count of first-degree murder over the 2007 mass shooting.