Richard Tafoya
Nov 21st, 2008, 08:31 AM
McClatchy: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/56255.html
Private security contractors operating in Iraq could face Iraqi prosecution for acts committed when they supposedly had immunity from Iraqi law, U.S. officials said Thursday.
A new U.S.-Iraq security agreement doesn't specifically prevent Iraqi officials from bringing criminal charges retroactively in cases such as the September 2007 shooting deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians by contractors protecting a State Department convoy, officials told security company officials during meetings in Washington Thursday.
The news caught company officials by surprise.
"We are still trying to make sense of it," said Anne E. Tyrrell, a spokeswoman for Blackwater Inc., whose security guards have been involved in some of the most controversial incidents in Iraq, including the Sept. 16, 2007, shooting at al Nisoor Square in Baghdad.
...
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki insisted that they be accountable to Iraqi law under the new security deal.
But the question of whether Iraqis could use the agreement to prosecute contractors for previous incidents wasn't addressed in the new agreement. When security company officials asked Thursday, "We told them that's a question we don't know the answer to," said a State Department official, who spoke to reporters about the meetings under the condition of anonymity.
...
A State Department official said U.S. officials didn't know how the agreement would affect the ability of American civilian officials to move around Iraq. State Department employees currently are protected almost exclusively by private security guards as they travel away from the U.S. Embassy. However, the agreement addresses only security contractors working with U.S. military forces.
We are in "diplomatic engagement with the Iraqis" on the matter, the State Department official said.
Private security contractors operating in Iraq could face Iraqi prosecution for acts committed when they supposedly had immunity from Iraqi law, U.S. officials said Thursday.
A new U.S.-Iraq security agreement doesn't specifically prevent Iraqi officials from bringing criminal charges retroactively in cases such as the September 2007 shooting deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians by contractors protecting a State Department convoy, officials told security company officials during meetings in Washington Thursday.
The news caught company officials by surprise.
"We are still trying to make sense of it," said Anne E. Tyrrell, a spokeswoman for Blackwater Inc., whose security guards have been involved in some of the most controversial incidents in Iraq, including the Sept. 16, 2007, shooting at al Nisoor Square in Baghdad.
...
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki insisted that they be accountable to Iraqi law under the new security deal.
But the question of whether Iraqis could use the agreement to prosecute contractors for previous incidents wasn't addressed in the new agreement. When security company officials asked Thursday, "We told them that's a question we don't know the answer to," said a State Department official, who spoke to reporters about the meetings under the condition of anonymity.
...
A State Department official said U.S. officials didn't know how the agreement would affect the ability of American civilian officials to move around Iraq. State Department employees currently are protected almost exclusively by private security guards as they travel away from the U.S. Embassy. However, the agreement addresses only security contractors working with U.S. military forces.
We are in "diplomatic engagement with the Iraqis" on the matter, the State Department official said.