Posted on 12/25/2016 10:04:52 AM PST by Jack Black
Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors used perjured testimony to secure guilty verdicts for four decorated veterans accused of indiscriminately shooting into a crowd of Iraqi civilians in September 2007 while working as private contractors for Blackwater, argue some of the defendants’ family members.
Nicholas Slatten of Sparta, TN, one of the former Blackwater guards, was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison in April. The other three — Paul Slough of Keller, TX, Evan Liberty of Rochester, NH, and Dustin Heard of Maryville, TN — were convicted of numerous counts of voluntary manslaughter and attempted manslaughter, in addition to a firearms offense, and in April were sentenced to nearly 30 years behind bars. All four decorated war veterans were convicted for their role in allegedly killing 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians on Sept. 16, 2007 at Nisur Square in Baghdad.
Breitbart News spoke to Christin Slough, wife of Paul Slough, and Jessica Slatten, Nicholas Slatten’s sister.
They accused DOJ prosecutors of relying on perjured testimony from an Iraqi police officer to secure the guilty verdict of the four defendants.
The Iraqi officer, identified only as Mr. Monem, was the DOJ’s key witness in support of its theory that the four defendants committed crimes in Nisur Square.
Christin and Jessica argue that four decorated combat veterans are currently sitting in jail for defending themselves in war-torn Iraq. “An Iraqi police officer testified during trial and then in connection with the sentencing process submitted what’s called a victim impact statement that is so inconsistent with his trial testimony and is so contrary to the government’s theory of the case,”
“He took the stand and he gave a completely different account during trial, then he gave in his victim impact statement,” she added. “Essentially, he lied during trial.”
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Among the many horrible legacies of Obama his perversion of our tradition of fair American justice is probably the worst. The gratuitous, unprecedented, unwarranted, vindictive, and likely lillegal prosecution of the the State Dept. employees operating in a chaotic environment was clearly delivered for to send a political message in Iraq, and do some score settling with the Bush administration.
In 2017, among the many things needing to be set right, are the full pardon of these four men by President Trump. This will encourage all of us to understand the that topsy-turvy world of Obama's Justice is finally and blessedly at an end.
Until then, we have to remember the men suffering on this Christmas day.
Please keep pinging this story.
Typical O’B*****D DOJ conduct.
Much work remains in the New Year.
Merry Christmas to one and all. May the New Year deliver happiness, justice and restoration of our great nation to all, especially those trod upon by the boot of Obama's despotic and racist Just-Us department.
The charges were filed in 2007.
Sounds like a Trump FULL PARDON is in order.
Under American traditions people are only prosecuted using laws that are already on the books, and actually apply to the crime at hand. That tradition was desecrated by the Obama admin in their rush to send messages and mollify their leftist and Islamist supporters. From the article:
The problem is that the defendants, as State Department contractors, do not seem to be covered by the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA), the law under which they were charged. As I explained in a column after they were indicted in 2008, MEJA covers people "employed by or accompanying the Armed Forces outside the United States," including Defense Department contractors. In a 2008 report, the Congressional Research Service said "MEJA does not appear to cover civilian and contract employees of agencies engaged in their own operations overseas." The Congressional Budget Office agreed, stating flatly that "employees of security contractors working for the Department of State would not be subject to MEJA."
“As I explained in a column after they were indicted in 2008...”
Who indicted them in 2008?
President Trump will fix this, too!
bttt
The lawless demagogue Obama and his marginally qualified Justice Department co-conspirators blatantly ignored the obvious limits of the law and made it up as they went along.
Much of Obama's "ruling with a phone and pen" has resulted in federal regulator over-reach, and inconvenienced many Americans. His amnesty of the "dreamers" has allowed people to remain in the USA, again illegal but arguably compassionate.
The Obama over-reach and illegal executive branch behavior in the case of the Blackwater defendants is much more serious, as it has resulted in one life sentence based on the law-as-cotton-candy theories of Obama and reckless Federal judges. An excerpt from the above link:
Law360, Washington (February 9, 2016, 2:55 PM EST) --The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers on Monday threw its weight behind four former Blackwater guards' efforts to overturn their convictions from a 2007 shooting in Iraq, telling the D.C. Circuit the case is rife with "prosecutorial overreaching and vindictiveness." NACDL warned that criminal statutes have been pushed past their breaking point in prosecuting Nicholas Slatten, Dustin Heard, Evan Liberty and Paul Slough for the deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians killed in Baghdad's Nisour Square when Blackwater employees allegedly fired into a crowd of civilians.
"A review of the record in this case raises serious concerns in terms of the expansive construction of federal criminal statutes and the extent of prosecutorial overreaching and unfairness," NACDL said.
The case was improper from the start, according to the the group, which pointed to the use of the Military Extrajudicial Jurisdiction Act to bring charges over an alleged crime that happened well outside normal U.S. jurisdiction.
The jurisdiction law is limited to conduct committed while working for the U.S. military, according to the brief, where the guards were under a contract with the U.S. Department of State. They claim they faced incoming gunfire and a suspected car bomb as they secured the traffic circle in preparation for a State Department official's return to Baghdad's Green Zone.
"The plain language of this statute alone should have been enough to resolve this issue, but if there were any doubt, the presumption against extraterritoriality — created precisely to prevent American courts from being forced to confront the types of intractable evidentiary and sovereignty problems exemplified by this case — should have ended the debate," NACDL said. "Simply put, Congress did not expressly authorize the sort of overseas prosecution undertaken by the government here, and this prosecution should have never happened."
I have no relationship with any of the Blackwater contractors. It's just a giant miscarriage of justice which irks me.
http://www.supportraven23.com/blog/perjured-testimony
I hope the Trump Admininstration looks at this and issues appropriate pardons, with public explanations.
God bless these victims of the Islamic Marxist pig. Until president Trump takes office nothing will be done.
thanks for the bttt
“Typical O’B*****D DOJ conduct.”
Agreed! So as part of the process of pardoning these men, there needs to be a DOJ investigation to determine the “chain of command” backward from the prosecutors. If it can be determined that the prosecutors knowingly used perjured testimony, they themselves should be tried unless they are willing to identify the higher ups who told them what they had to do. Until we actually prosecute prosecutorial misconduct and prosecutors do some serious jail time, we will continue to see these outrageous abuses. And this should extend to state prosecutors as well.
The prosecutors, judge, jury, and the entire chain of command all the way to the commander in chief, should investigated for their complicity in this travesty of juctice.
If found guilty in public trials, all of these people should be punished to the maximum extent of the law.
“The prosecutors, judge, jury, and the entire chain of command all the way to the commander in chief, should investigated for their complicity in this travesty of juctice.
If found guilty in public trials, all of these people should be punished to the maximum extent of the law.”
It was the Bush DoJ that brought the charges, it was a Clinton appointed judge that dismissed the charges, after the charges were revived, it was the SCOTUS that declined to review the case and it was a Reagan appointed judge that sentenced the defendents to prison.
Those are the facts.
The usurper in chief has done everything in his unlawful power to come down against anything related to our great military people and in particular those four decorated veterans. He (odumbo) is lucky the military never came down on him in the form of a military coup(not coop), had they done so, we could have avoided having to pay him any pension. Too bad!
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