On Friday, a US appeals court threw out the first-degree murder conviction of Nicholas A. Slatten, one of the four former Blackwater security guards who massacred 14 unarmed Iraqis in September 2007 while working for the US State Department. Slatten had been sentenced to life in prison in 2015, and the other three former guards each received sentences of 30 years. The court also ruled that the three other men be resentenced. All four men were convicted of first-degree murder and manslaughter by a federal jury in October 2014.
On September 16, 2007, the four men were part of a convoy which opened fire with automatic weapons on a civilian intersection in Baghdad’s Nisour Square. Helicopters were also used to fire into the intersection from overhead. In total, 14 unarmed Iraqis, including children, were killed and 17 more were wounded.
Blackwater has changed names twice, first to Xe Services and then to Academi. The company’s CEO Erik Prince, the brother of current Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, resigned from Blackwater in 2009. He went on to form a private mercenary force for the United Arab Emirates and is currently lobbying the Trump administration to expand the role of mercenaries in the US war in the Afghanistan.
— source wsws.org, therealnews.com 2017-08-06