First Amendment Coalition » Blackwater

U.S. Supreme Court accepts sealed petition from Blackwater security guards under indictment for manslaughter

donal brown — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 19:24:42 +0000

The U.S. Supreme Court accepted a secret petition from four former Blackwater security guards indicted for manslaughter for firing on Iraqi civilians wounding 20 and killing 14.

The court will consider the petition in deciding if a federal district judge erred in dismissing the charges against the guards on the grounds that the prosecution used evidence tainted by exposure to immunized statements. -db

From the Courthouse News Service, November 14, 2011, by Barbara Leonard.

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Employee of private security firm in Iraq claims Pulitzer prize-winning reporter libeled him

donal brown — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 16:56:30 +0000

An ex-Marine and former employee of a private security firm in Iraq is suing reporter Steve Fainaru for defamation in the book, “Big Boy Rules” about mercenaries in Iraq. The man claims Fainaru called him “a sadistic killing machine” and libeled him with a number of false statements including some about his lack of care with firearms and excessive drinking.

Fainaru, then a Washington Post reporter, won the Pulitzer for international reporting in 2008 for a series of articles on Triple Canopy, Blackwater and and other mercenary firms in Iraq. -db

From the Courthouse News Service, October 19, 2011, by Kevin Koeninger.

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Federal judge orders release of documents from 2009 Blackwater case

donal brown — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:10:06 +0000

A federal judge ordered the release of redacted documents from a 2009 hearing over whether the government used immunized statements of Blackwater guards on trial for a 2007 Baghdad shooting. -DB

Courthouse News Service
January 8, 2010
By Avery Fellow

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., ordered the released of redacted documents from last year’s hearing examining whether the government illegally used the immunized statements of five former Blackwater guards indicted in the 2007 Nisoor Square shooting.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina’s order follows his decision on Dec. 31 to drop the indictment against the five former Blackwater guards, who were accused of opening fire on Iraqi civilians in Baghdad’s Nisoor Square in 2007.

On Oct. 14 of last year, the court held a hearing to decide if the government had used shielded statements in its case against the guards. All records related to the hearing, including the testimony of 25 witnesses, were sealed to prevent jurors and witnesses from being exposed to guard testimony outside the courtroom, Urbina said.

Days after Urbina dismissed the charges against the former security contractors, the Washington Post and The Associated Press requested the sealed material. They argued that Urbina’s Dec. 31 decision had disclosed most of the information from the hearing, anyway.

But the government and the ex-guards urged the court to keep the records sealed until the government has had the chance to appeal the Dec. 31 order, in order to avoid tainting possible jurors and witnesses if the case goes to trial again.

In an attempt to balance the media’s First Amendment rights with the defendants’ right to a fair trial, Urbina ordered the government and the Blackwater defendants to submit redacted versions of the pre- and post-hearing documents.

Urbina acknowledged that his earlier decision revealed some of the sealed material, but said that disclosing the entire hearing record would release “significantly more information” about the guards’ compelled statements.

As a compromise, Urbina gave the government and the Blackwater defendants until Jan. 11 to “redact all references to tainted information.”

He said the redacted records would be released on Feb. 2.

Federal judge closes hearings to public in trial of Blackwater security guards charged with manslaughter in Iraq

donal brown — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:44:08 +0000

A U.S. district judge closed the Blackwater manslaughter pretrial hearings to the public, he said, to enable a fair trial by shielding witnesses and potential jurors from a flurry of media reports. -DB

The Washington Post
October 15, 2009
By Del Quentin Wilber

A federal judge blocked the public Wednesday from attending a critical set of pretrial hearings in the prosecution of five U.S. security contractors accused of killing 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians in 2007.

The hearings, which are expected to last through next week, will examine whether the government improperly used immunized statements by the Blackwater Worldwide security guards in its investigation. The guards gave the statements to the State Department shortly after the controversial shooting Sept. 16, 2007, in a busy Baghdad square.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina said Wednesday that he was closing the hearings because he wanted to shield witnesses and potential jurors from pretrial publicity. He said he wanted to ensure the guards a fair trial.

The hearings in the District’s federal court were not listed on the public docket, and filings by prosecutors and defense attorneys over the immunity issue have been sealed. A Washington Post reporter learned about the hearings several weeks ago and was told they would be open to the public. Last week, a court clerk told The Post that Urbina intended to close the hearings.

In a letter Tuesday, The Post asked Urbina to reconsider. Post attorney James McLaughlin said the court should have put the proceedings on the open docket and given the public an earlier chance to challenge the basis for the closure of the hearing. He said concerns about the impact of pretrial publicity were “highly speculative” unless supported by factual findings in open court.

Urbina denied The Post’s request. He said the rights of the five guards to a fair trial outweighed the public’s interest in attending the proceedings. He said he was concerned about how news accounts of the statements might affect witnesses, some as far away as Baghdad.

The judge added that he did not see a way to partially open the hearings because they will deal heavily with grand jury information. Grand jury proceedings are, by law, kept secret.

The five guards — Paul Slough, Nicholas Slatten, Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard and Donald Ball — are charged with voluntary manslaughter and weapons violations in the killing of 14 civilians and the wounding of 20 others. The Justice Department alleges that the guards unleashed an unprovoked attack on Iraqi civilians in Nisoor Square while in a convoy. One guard, Jeremy P. Ridgeway, has pleaded guilty and is expected to testify against the others.

Blackwater, which has since renamed itself Xe, had a contract to provide security for the State Department in Iraq.

The Justice Department’s investigation has been complicated by many factors.

Agents and prosecutors were barred from gleaning information from immunized statements the guards gave to officials with the State Department Bureau of Diplomatic Security. When officials took the statements from the guards, the State Department was under pressure to quickly assess what happened.

The proceedings underway, known as Kastigar hearings, will probe how well investigators gathered evidence without being tainted by those immunized statements. If the judge finds the government’s case is tainted, he might throw out the indictment.