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<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court on Friday overturned the first-degree murder conviction of a former Blackwater security contractor, ordering a new trial for the man prosecutors say fired the first shots in the 2007 slayings of 14 Iraqi civilians at a crowded traffic circle in Baghdad.</p>

A federal appeals court threw out the lengthy sentences for three Blackwater Worldwide security contractors and ordered a new trial for a fourth man involved in a deadly 2007 shooting in Baghdad.

As the market for crop dusters converted into light surveillance and attack aircraft continues to expand, another contender has appeared on the market at the annual Paris Air Show at the French capital city’s Le Bourget Airport. However, potential customers might be turned off by the company’s already sordid reputation, which involves accusations of dubiously legal business practices, potential violations of international embargoes and sanctions, and a connection to infamous mercenary Erik Prince. On June 19, 2017, the first day of the show, a modified Thrush 510G agricultural aircraft sat out in the sun at Le Bourget. Bulgarian firm LASA...

Afghanistan Approach As the Trump administration debates its Afghanistan War approach, Blackwater founder and former Navy SEAL Erik Prince is recommending, that the U.S. military goes back to its light footprint concept. Prince stated that this approach was used during the first 12 months following the September 2001 attack was the most effective. This was a culmination of CIA, special operators and contractors working with Afghan forces with tactical air support. In other words, why not go back to something that was in the works that was successful. Prince was referring to a model that for a couple of hundred...

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Anthony Elgindy, the controversial short-seller and online stock commentator, has been arrested on charges of racketeering, insider trading and market manipulation, a government spokeswoman said Wednesday. Jan Caldwell, a spokeswoman for the San Diego field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said Elgindy, who lives in the San Diego area, was arrested at his business Tuesday. Details of the charges against Elgindy weren't immediately available. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Brooklyn, N.Y., from which the charges originate, said the office would issue a statement about the Elgindy case soon.

Barack Obama‘s CIA Director John O. Brennan targeted Trump supporters for enhanced surveillance, intelligence sources confirm to GotNews’ Charles C. Johnson. The surveillance took place between Trump’s election on November 8 and the inauguration in January, according to White House and House intelligence sources. The focus was on General Mike Flynn, billionaire Erik Prince, and Fox News host Sean Hannity — all of whom had close ties to Trump before and after the November election and had helped the future president with managing his new diplomatic responsibilities. Hannity was targeted because of his perceived ties to Julian Assange, say our...

he United Arab Emirates arranged a secret meeting in January between Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a Russian close to President Vladi­mir Putin as part of an apparent effort to establish a back-channel line of communication between Moscow and President-elect Donald Trump, according to U.S., European and Arab officials. The meeting took place around Jan. 11 — nine days before Trump’s inauguration — in the Seychelles islands in the Indian Ocean, officials said. Though the full agenda remains unclear, the UAE agreed to broker the meeting in part to explore whether Russia could be persuaded to curtail its relationship with...

A mercenary air force that became a symbol of the U.S. occupation of Iraq is back in action—this time in Central Africa, supporting a shadowy American U.S. Special Forces commando operation targeting the Lord’s Resistance Army. In late January, a source on the ground in Central African Republic spotted a Sikorsky S-61 helicopter with the registry number N408RC carrying American Special Forces troops. The LRA, a cultish band of thieves and rapists led by warlord Joseph Kony, is most active in the forested region where Central African Republic, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo meet. In 2010, President...

For-profit combat pilots fly Emirati Air Tractors

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,...

Erik Prince on Huma Abedin: ‘Agent of Influence Very Sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood’ Had Hillary Clinton’s Ear ‘for All These Years’ Retired Navy SEAL and former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince offered his insights on former SoS Hillary Clinton’s close personal aide Huma Abedin on Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM. “Huma Abedin, the person closest to Hillary Clinton in the world, connected to the Muslim Brotherhood, edited a journal with radical Islamic thought in it. Her family, she comes from a bizarre background – well, it’s not really bizarre, it’s kinda commonplace in the Muslim world..... “Her parents, particularly her...

“Huma Abedin, the person closest to Hillary Clinton.....her father, was very much a Muslim Brotherhood sympathizer or agent.....“The Muslim Brotherhood approach is a slow, creeping infiltration and takeover, with sharia law, so having an agent of influence very sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood, sitting right at the ear of Hillary Clinton....is absolutely unacceptable,”

Truncated title. Full title: Erik Prince on Huma Abedin: ‘Agent of Influence Very Sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood’ Had Hillary Clinton’s Ear ‘for All These Years’ Retired Navy SEAL and former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince offered his insights on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s close personal aide Huma Abedin on Thursday’s edition of Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM. “Huma Abedin, the person closest to Hillary Clinton in the world, connected to the Muslim Brotherhood, edited a journal with radical Islamic thought in it. Her family, she comes from a bizarre background – well, it’s not really bizarre, it’s kinda...

The United States on Tuesday offered a reward of up to $3 million for information about a former Tajik special operations colonel whom it trained in counter-terrorism before he joined the Islamic State militant group. The U.S. State Department announced the reward for Gulmurod Khalimov in a statement that made no mention of his training, which included attending five U.S.-funded courses in the United States and Tajikistan between 2003 and 2014....

Retired Navy SEAL and former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince addressed the controversy surrounding President Obama’s secret $400 million payment to Iran on Monday’s edition of Breitbart News Daily with SiriusXM host Stephen K. Bannon. “For the administration to deny that it was a ransom payment is a complete lie,” said Prince, adding

Four former Blackwater security contractors found guilty in a deadly Baghdad shooting appealed their convictions on Monday, saying a key witness against them had changed his testimony after the trial and that prosecutors lacked jurisdiction to even bring the case. The appeals, long expected, represent the latest legal volley in a criminal case that's spanned years in Washington's federal court and that concluded with guilty verdicts following a months-long trial in 2014. Nicholas Slatten is serving a life sentence on a charge of first-degree murder. Three other former guards - Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Herd - were found...

The United Arab Emirates has secretly dispatched hundreds of Colombian mercenaries to Yemen to fight in that country’s raging conflict, adding a volatile new element in a complex proxy war that has drawn in the United States and Iran. It is the first combat deployment for a foreign army that the Emirates has quietly built in the desert over the past five years, according to several people currently or formerly involved with the project. The program was once managed by a private company connected to Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater Worldwide, but the people involved in the effort said...

A federal judge sentenced former Blackwater security guard Nicholas Slatten to life in prison and three others to 30-year terms for their roles in a 2007 shooting that killed 14 Iraqi civilians and wounded 17 others. The carnage in Baghdad's Nisoor Square caused an international uproar over the use of private security guards in a war zone. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth sentenced Slatten, who witnesses said was the first to fire shots in the incident, to life on a charge of first-degree murder. The three other guards - Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard - were each sentenced...

Chris Kyle, the now-deceased Navy SEAL who is celebrated in Clint Eastwood's movie "American Sniper" was a proved liar. Jesse Ventura, the former military man, wrestler and governor of Minnesota, sued Kyle before he died, claiming that he defamed Ventura in his memoir, "American Sniper." Kyle claims to have punched out Ventura in a bar after Ventura bad-mouthed the troops who'd been sent to Iraq. Kyle was killed before the trial, but a jury determined that none of what he had written about Ventura was true and awarded Ventura $1.8 million. Because he's a proved liar, we should be awfully...

Erik Prince is not whining, he wants that clear. “However much I had to put up with, in terms of the assault from all sides, from the lawyers and the bureaucrats, pales in comparison to guys who lost their lives, who were maimed, either active-duty military or contractors,” he says. “I’m just providing a cautionary tale to the next guy dumb enough to run to the sound of the alarm bell. Because the government can drop you on a dime and leave you hanging.” For Prince, who in less than a decade took an obscure military training facility, Blackwater USA,...