Blackwater guards could face mandatory 30-year prison sentences

[ProSense]

US mulls unusual tactic as Blackwater charges loom

AP Exclusive: US may use stiff drug law provision as indictments loom in Blackwater shootings

MATT APUZZO and LARA JAKES JORDAN
AP News

Dec 04, 2008 17:14 EST

Blackwater Worldwide guards involved in the deadly 2007 Baghdad shooting of Iraqi civilians could face mandatory 30-year prison sentences under an aggressive anti-drug law being considered as the Justice Department readies indictments, people close to the case said.

Charges could be announced as early as Monday for the shooting, which left 17 civilians dead and strained U.S. relations with the fledgling Iraqi government. Prosecutors have been reviewing a draft indictment and considering manslaughter and assault charges for weeks. A team of prosecutors returned to the grand jury room Thursday and called no witnesses.

Though drugs were not involved in the Blackwater shooting, the Justice Department is pondering the use of a law, passed at the height of the nation's crack epidemic, to prosecute the guards. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 law calls for 30-year prison terms for using machine guns to commit violent crimes of any kind, whether drug-related or not.

The people who discussed the case did so on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose matters that are not yet public.

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd declined to comment on the report.

Blackwater, the largest security contractor in Iraq, was thrust into the national spotlight after the Sept. 16, 2007, shooting. Its guards, all decorated military veterans hired to protect U.S. diplomats overseas, were responding to a car bombing when a shooting erupted in a crowded intersection.

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On edit: Drug law? What's the difficulty in charging these criminals with murder?

KBR, Halliburton sued for sickening U.S. troops






edited typo.

[Winterblues]

1. They can get out in about five years if charged with murder but DRUGS

Boy Howdy.... got to lock them druggies up and throw away the key..

[ngant17]

2. the name is for reference purposes only

and it is perfectly appropriate to charge these mercenaries with homicide. They do not fall into the UCMJ (Unified Code of Military Justice) as the active duty troops do, so in cases like this, that would not be a court martial so hopefully there will be more harsher penalites that these mercs will get.

I hope they all get the death penalty so it would make an example for the rest of their sorry lot. Even better, they should be thrown out of US protection and into the Arabic judicial system then let the Iraqi civilian mobs take care of them with some of their more creative forms of Medieval punishment.

[ColbertWatcher]

3. "They do not fall into the UCMJ ..." I thought Dipshit changed that? n/t

[merh]

8. How do the feds have jurisdiction?

That would be the first attack I would make on the indictment. Did this happen in the green zone or at the embassy or on a base? If not, the feds have no jurisdiction. We may have occupied Iraq, but we helped them set up their own government, it is a sovereign nation.

International Court should be the venue, war crimes the charges.

Let them be the first, but not the last.

[ngant17]

11. ever since Raygun set a precedent about the World Court

wrt the charges brought by Nicaragua in 1986, when the US walked out of the proceedings by the World Court, I have very little faith that the US government will follow international law in this venue again. Even with Pres. Obama on our side, there is still this unfortunate precedent which will give the mercs an opportunity to escape justice in this manner.

The bottom line: the United States used to accept binding World Court jurisdiction in all cases except those falling under the jurisdiction of American courts. But President Reagan ended this in 1986 after Nicaragua successfully sued the United States before the Court for mining its harbors and aiding the contras.

[merh]

12. But that still doesn't explain how the US has jurisidiction in Iraq

It was not our colony, our territory, our nation, even as the occupying nation we continued to publicize that Iraq was a sovereign nation, we brought it democracy. If the killings occurred on US soil, on a base, in the green zone or at the embassy, then the US has jurisdiction and the federal prosecutors can bring charges. If the killings didn't occur at any of the "us terrority" then the feds have no jurisdiction.

[ngant17]

13. The US has a habit of making up the rules as it plays the game

and those questions of jurisdiction are typically mandated by its use of battle tanks, APCs, surgical airstrikes, blitzkrieg attacks, snipers, and so forth. Good old fashioned imperialism.

This would have to be settled in an international court, I agree, but if the future can be predicted based on past events, the US will walk out of the proceedings before they get any kind of trial started.

[merh]

14. You are telling me what the US as a nation would do.

Despite what you may believe, despite what the prosecutors hope and what the GWB administration has made most everyone fear, our COURTS do tend to follow the law, they do respect the system that has been in place and their roles and limitations within that system.

That said, my question is legitimate (and what the defense will use when seeking to have the indictments dismissed). It is not some open question asked to elicit responses about imperialism and thuggery. How does the US district court have the JURISIDCTION to hear the charges, how does a federal grand jury have the jurisdiction to consider the charges?

The killings did not happen in the US; on a US base, in the green zone, on the embassy grounds. They occurred in Iraq, in Baghdad, the US government has no jurisdiction - we didn't claim ownership of Iraq, it wasn't a colony, our presence there was to assist the Iraqis - to "help them create a democracy", so what law does the US prosecutors use to establish US jurisdiction?

[ngant17]

15. it's largely a circular argument

"...you are telling me what the US as a nation would do...so what law does the US prosecutors use to establish US jurisdiction? "

These Blackwater mercenaries in Iraq were mostly US citizens, they were and are serial killers and mass murderers who ran amok in Iraq, but I doubt it if they will get any kind of a punishment they deserve. Likewise, where were those wonderful US prosecutors when we needed them in Central America? The law and the enforcement of the law are two vastly different things. I could think of a dozen Pentagon colonels and generals who should have hung at the gallows for what happened in Central America.

Sure, your question is very legitimate, but what has truth and morality and human rights have to do with it?

Again, the prosecutors will do nothing, even if there is a law on the books.

Politics flows from the barrel of a gun, and it is the US which will use force of arms, to establish "jurisdiction", these sorts of laws will be made in real time , that is to say, firepower and terrorism will be used against civilian non-combatants as appropriate, it will be done as it might suit the fancy of US policy makers, whomever they might be at the time.

US prosecutors will only follow what their paymasters will tell them to do. They don't act independently, on pavlovian command, they will ignore such niceties as equality and justice, they won't be setting any policy or trying to "establish US jurisdiction" because policy and jurisdiction will already be established for them ahead of time, by those force of arms which comes from the Pentagon, the Pentagon having nothing to do with equality, human rights or international justice. Raygun abandoned all of that in 1986, in Nicaragua vrs. US in World Court.

You can look at the numerous human rights violations (aka massacres) of non-combatant civilians in Central America (El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua during the 1980s), to predict how this will play out in Iraq in 2009. 25 years later, some country like Argentina will perhaps to dig up some of the graves for forensic study, accusations will be made against those responsible, the ones who will only die comfortably of old age. Remember, Mr. Negroponte was running the show in Iraq, largely for the same reasons he was in Honduras, to fine tune the policy and jurisdiction of the US-supported death squads and mercenaries, so they can be used in their most ferocious and brutal forms. Terrorism has always been perfectly legitimate as a policy, "to establish US jurisdiction", as long as it suits the US government.

[merh]

17. Buy a clue.

I'm well aware of all that you have posted. Your rants don't fall on ignorant eyes, you are lecturing the informed and in your lecture you miss the very narrow point I raised.

The prosecutors are "doing" now. What bothers me the most about the "doing" is the obviouis lack of jurisdiction.

So the prosecutors get an indictment and the defense raises the jurisdictional issues. The court is reluctant to dismiss the indictment too early, the prosecution has claimed that their evidence will prove jurisdiction lies with the court. The judge, not wanting to dismiss without hearing the evidence, allows the matter to go to trial. A jury is empaneled and jeopardy is formed. After the prosecution puts on their evidence, the defense renews its motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction and the court grants it. The defendants have had their day in court, the prosecution has put on its evidence and have "done their job" and, to the lay man, the matters are dismissed on technicalities. Since a jury was empaneled, the defendants cannot be tried again under the double jeopardy clause.

What that tells me is this is just a friggin side show, an appearance of caring and of wanting justice.

So please go try to inform someone else. Your rants, though understood and understandable, do not deal with the issue at hand.

[ngant17]

18. I am merely predicting the future based on past events

Sure, it will likely be a sideshow, but also consider a best-case scenario, the mercs are tried in Iraq by a prosecution (US or otherwise) that is going to give most of them the death penalty or life imprisonment in Iraq jail.

Perhaps a convenient car bomb will explode next to the court house.

Or a precision-guided missile will blast the entire jury to smithereens.

Or snipers will finish off the judges and lawyers.

It will be blamed on terrorists, or Al Qaida, or an error from the Pentagon, or whatever.

Or there will be a black ops group to break them out of jail.

All this is predictable.

Actually the best case scenario is to try Eric Prince (the CEO of Blackwater) here in the USA for the Iraqi mass murders. It's no different than Charles Manson, who was convicted for murders as the intellectual author, although he was not a direct particpant himself. It would send a stronger signal.

[BrklynLiberal]

4. In addition to severe penalties for the individuals, I would like to see Blackwater

hit with HUGE fines...and of course, forever forbidden from getting ANY govt contracts for ANYTHING!!!

[TahitiNut]

5. The Cheney/Bush 'Waffen SS' ... they belong in prison, with Cheney and Bush.

:grr:

[glitch]

6. Bet they thought their crimes would be safely ignored under a Bush regime forever.

Or at least 1000 years.

Suckers.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

7. That will not happen.

[Dukkha]

9. They should serve the sentence in Abu Ghraib

as convicted felons then can never own guns again once released. the worst punishment to them. oh, the horror!

[dixiegrrrrl]

10. Something terribly wrong with this picture, folks.

Time to start looking for the pickle, not the pony.

The Just-US Dept. has always and forever ( or 12 years, which ever is most nefarious) sided with
the Regime.
All of sudden they are throwing Prince's pals to the sharks??

Either Prince does not want to pay the sacrificed guys,
or Iraq made that a condition of the agreement it just signed
or DOJ is planning a pre-emptive case which it will then "accidental" fubar.

[spanone]

16. buSh* should be prosecuted, he hired the hit men