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UN criticises Trump’s pardons for Blackwater guards jailed over Iraq killings

The UN has sharply criticized President Donald Trump’s decision to pardon four former Blackwater contractors jailed over the killing of 14 Iraqi civilians.

 

Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, and Dustin Heard opened fire in Baghdad’s Nisoor Square in 2007 while guarding an American diplomatic convoy.

The UN Human Rights Office warned that the pardons would serve to embolden others to commit similar crimes.

 

The father of a nine-year boy who died said Mr. Trump “broke my life again”.

There was no immediate response from the Iraqi government.

 

What happened in Nisoor Square?

Slatten, Slough, Liberty, and Heard were among 19 Blackwater private security contractors assigned to guard a convoy of four heavily-armored vehicles carrying US personnel on 16 September 2007.

 

According to the US justice department, at about noon that day, several of the contractors opened fire in and around Nisoor Square, a busy roundabout that was immediately adjacent to the heavily-fortified Green Zone.

 

When they stopped shooting, at least 14 Iraqi civilians were dead – 10 men, two women, and two boys aged nine and 11. Iraqi authorities put the toll at 17.

US prosecutors said Slatten was the first to fire, without provocation, killing Ahmed Haithem Ahmed Al Rubiay, an aspiring doctor who was driving his mother to an appointment.

 

The contractors said they mistakenly believed that they were under attack.

The incident caused international outrage, strained relations between the US and Iraq, and sparked a debate over the role of contractors in warzones.

 

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