UN Panel Says Trump's Blackwater Pardons Violated International Law

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Last updated on January 16th, 2021 at 05:03 am

A United Nations panel said this morning that President Donald Trump‘s pardons of several former Blackwater contractors convicted of killing civilians in Baghdad are a violation of international law.

“Pardoning the Blackwater contractors is an affront to justice and to the victims of the Nisour Square massacre and their families,” said Jelena Aparac, chair of the U.N. working group on the use of mercenaries, in a statement.

The panel of human rights experts noted that the pardons violate the Geneva Conventions, which oblige states to hold war criminals accountable for the crimes they commit.

“These pardons violate US obligations under international law and more broadly undermine humanitarian law and human rights at a global level,” it said.

Blackwater, the private security firm now known as Academi owned by the brother of Trump’s education secretary Betsy DeVos, was heavily criticized over a 2007 incident in which American contractors Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, and Dustin Heard opened fire in Baghdad and killed 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians. Slatten was later convicted of first-degree murder while Slough, Liberty, and Heard were convicted of voluntary and attempted manslaughter.

Faris Fadel, whose brother, Osama Abbas was on his way to work when he was shot and killed that day, issued a harsh condemnation of the pardons, which the White House claimed were “broadly supported.”

“This decision was wrong, it was unfair,” Fadel told The Associated Press. “How can you release those who have blood on their hands?”

“They were all civilians, they weren’t guilty of anything,” he said of the victims of the attack, who were attacked by sniper fire, machine guns, and grenade launchers.