International Law
No Blackwater Case Due to Immunity Grant?
Posted Oct 29, 2007, 04:31 pm CST
By Martha Neil
In addition to other obstacles that could well prevent prosecution of private Blackwater USA security guards who reportedly killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad last month, there's one more major issue that recently came to light.
The security guards were apparently promised immunity by the U.S. State Department early on during the investigation, reports the Associated Press. "Once you give immunity, you can't take it away," says an unnamed senior law enforcement official familiar with the investigation.
More details about the incident are provided in an earlier ABAJournal.com post. It discusses a civil suit brought by a survivor and the families of some deceased victims of the incident.
A number of issues would have made it difficult to prosecute the case even without an immunity grant. However, it may be that those who killed the Iraqis could be characterized as unlawful combatants acting in violation of international treaties, as discussed in another ABAJournal.com post.
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