Iraqi Foreign Relations Committee condemns Trump’s Blackwater amnesty

Shafaq News / the Iraqi Foreign Relations Committee condemned the US President, Donald Trump amnesty for Blackwater members who killed Iraqi civilians in the capital, Baghdad.

Committee member Mukhtar al-Mousawi told Shafaq News Agency, "Trump's decision underestimated the Iraqi blood, and confirms that killing Iraqis and destroying our infrastructure were intended, and could be directed by the US administration."

He stressed that "the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs must act fast by submitting an appeal to the relevant International Tribunal against Trump's decision, which encourages the Americans to commit more homicides," noting that "if the Iraqi government does not act, then Parliament will have a firm position.”

Earlier, President Donald Trump has pardoned four Blackwater security guards who were given lengthy prison sentences for killing 14 civilians in Baghdad in 2007, a massacre that caused international uproar over the use of private contractors in war zones.

The four – Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard and Nicholas Slatten – were part of an armoured convoy that opened fire indiscriminately with machine-guns and grenade launchers on a crowd of unarmed people in the Iraqi capital. Known as the Nisour Square massacre, the slaughter was seen as a low point in the conflict in Iraq.

In 2014, Slough, Liberty and Heard were found guilty of 13 charges of voluntary manslaughter and 17 charges of attempted manslaughter, while Slatten, the team’s sniper who was the first to open fire, was convicted of first-degree murder. Slatten was sentenced to life; Slough, Liberty and Heard got 30 years each.