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Blackwater Sued in US Court for Nisour Square Shootings
Families of Nisour Square victims, along with one survivor, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit this morning against Blackwater in federal district court. The suit represents one of the first times any Iraqi has taken legal action against a private military company working under contract from a U.S. government agency.
It's unclear whether Judge Reggie Walton (yup, the Scooter Libby judge) will allow the lawsuit to proceed. Families of U.S. troops who died in a 2004 Blackwater plane crash in Afghanistan filed a negligence suit. But it's rare for Iraqis to sue private-military companies in U.S. courts. One of the only precedents is a lawsuit filed by the same lawyers in the Blackwater case: a suit against contractors CACI and Titan for their role in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. And that case, filed in 2004, is still snarled up in legal challenges over whether the Iraqi victims have standing to sue.
Attorneys with the Philadelphia firm Burke O'Neill and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed the suit (pdf) in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. It claims Blackwater is responsible for "the extrajudicial killing of Oday Ismail Ibraheem, Himoud Saed Atban, and Usama Fadhil Abbas," and for mental and physical damages suffered by Talib Mutlaq Deewan, who survived the shooting. Deewan and the families are seeking compensatory and punitive damages, but no monetary amount is specified in the suit. The case has "great implications for the application of the rule of law and the rebuilding of the U.S.'s reputation abroad," says Vincent Warren, CCR's executive director and an attorney on the case. Contacts of CCR and Burke O'Neill on the ground in Iraq from the Abu Ghraib lawsuit reached out to the September 16 victims' families to offer legal assistance.
The plaintiffs rely on the Alien Tort Statute for their suit, part of a 1789 law passed to give foreigners standing to sue U.S. persons or organizations if they can't seek legal action in their own country. Thanks to a Coalition Provisional Authority edict known as Order 17, Blackwater is effectively outside Iraqi law.
Private security companies have in recent months sought new legislation clarifying the legal rules under which they operate abroad -- in part, to avoid lawsuits like today's. The International Peace Operations Association has thrown its weight behind a bill that passed the House last Friday firmly placing private military firms under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act -- which allows U.S. government prosecution of crimes committed by uniformed personnel overseas -- as "in the long-term interest of our industry." Ironically, Blackwater withdrew from the IPOA recently.
But the significance of the suit doesn't stop with the legal principle of Iraqis suing contractors. The complaint filed today could potentially expose much about Blackwater's activities, both in Iraq and in general. In the course of discovery, the plaintiff's lawyers are likely to ask for the disclosure of documents substantiating all sorts of rumored misdeeds. Among the allegations:
Reasonable discovery is likely to produce evidence of additional killings by Blackwater. Reasonable discovery is also likely to produce evidence that Blackwater on one or more occasions attempted to cover up its killings by paying modest sums (e.g., $15,000) to the families of Iraqis whom Blackwater forces shot for no reason. ...Reasonable discovery will establish that Blackwater significantly and consistently underreports excessive use of force by its employees in its own documentation. ...
Reasonable discovery will establish that Blackwater heavily markets the fact that it has never had any American official under its protection killed in Iraq. Reasonable discovery will establish that Blackwater views its willingness to kill innocent people as a strategic advantage setting Blackwater apart and above other security companies. ...
Reasonable discovery is likely to reveal Blackwater hired foreign nationals without regard for the fact that they were forbidden by the laws of their own country from serving as mercenaries.
Warren expects that Blackwater will file a motion to dismiss the case, meaning it'll take a while -- years, perhaps, if the Titan-CACI lawsuit is any guide -- before the case actually proceeds, if at all. A phone call requesting comment from Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrell was not immediately returned.
Update: This post initially stated, erroneously, that the lawsuit represents the first time Iraqis have sued a U.S. private military company. I regret the error.
Comments (11)
Michael wrote on October 11, 2007 1:07 PM:Good, I hope they win 100 million dollars. Congress isn't doing squat, so maybe a bunch of lawsuits might get some action. Hiring mercenaries to kill Iraqis? What has the US become? It is really horrible.
Carolyn wrote on October 11, 2007 1:49 PM:Right on, Michael. I don't think w can pardon them, can he? (Civil suit vs criminal?)
Rosali wrote on October 11, 2007 2:41 PM:The suit represents the first time any Iraqi has taken legal action against a private military company working under contract from a U.S. government agency.
This is not accurate. Iraqis and their survivors filed lawsuits in the US against the interrogation and translation contractors at Abu Ghraib, CACI Corp and Titan. The lawsuits were filed in 2004 in the DC Circuit and San Diego and relied on the Alien Tort Statute.
Dee Illuminati wrote on October 11, 2007 3:53 PM:I think that the circumstance where the 'contractors' make up the balance of the 300K that Gen. Eric Shineski initially suggested were required is interesting, and I also imagine that even if Blackwater were denied conracting in Iraq that existing personnel would sub-contract to other contractors in the country. Called 'teaming' in contractor parlance.
Again, this is a mote point short term as realistically the number of personnel will not shift.
I read at Buzzflash and saw on Lou Dobbs news artciles about lowering recruitment standards. And my gut response was why was there an issue with this? I'm wondering if the left supports conscription or not? And if so?? Do people with 'lower standards' get deffered as a consequence??? In retrospect the 'few' bright spots in this current circumstance is where somebody given a chance they otherwise would not have otherwise gotten would make good with it!
I'm not sure if the issue of accountability in the short term can be addressed in Iraq? But by logical extension if there is an opposition to contractors what is the recourse?
It is as if, the loudest advocates for conscription have become the left.
Does anybody else see an irony here? Or are we making the sidebar case for even larger active troop levels and the associated costs with long term VA benefits as a consequence?
Yeah the Blackwater issue still has legs in the news, but from a realistic standpoint nothing short term is going to change. And the tort process is long and drawn out and likely to lead to a settlement when this issue is replaced with another Britney Spears crotch story...
Can we say: Yawn to this?
P.S. Not as an apologist do I state the above but instead as a pragmatist.
lysias wrote on October 11, 2007 4:14 PM:A presidential pardon can't stop a civil suit. But what can happen is that the administration refuses to provide evidence and orders Blackwater not to provide any, on some dubious basis, perhaps the state secrets privilege, and then uses the state secrets privilege to move that the court dismiss the case.
Hey, it worked against Sibel Edmonds and Masri.
anonymouse wrote on October 11, 2007 5:51 PM:Interesting...
Iraq is a new democracy. I wonder how the Iraqis will regard our democracy when the suit is dismissed on the grounds that the Iraqi people are not yet free enough to sue a United States company for murdering local folks in their own country.
After all, our democracy is over two hundred years old and we have just now discovered this little factoid...
rpoynton wrote on October 11, 2007 6:39 PM:Dee Iluminati wrote: I'm not sure if the issue of accountability in the short term can be addressed in Iraq?
Roberta wrote on October 11, 2007 7:55 PM:The issue of accountability must be addressed all over Iraq in order for America to achive our mission of establishing a democratic government
over there.
Wouldn't it also be nice if we did something about accountability in the US at the same time it's being addressed in Iraq? And maybe we can revisit the definition of democracy while we're about it, so all elected officials can learn that democracy is about the majority of PEOPLE influencing the country's direction, not the majority of the MONEY.
It seems as if money might be the only way to find justice for anything to do with this Administration and its tentacles, since a civil suit can go forward (okay, with lots of complications) and criminal charges can't.
Can groups of Americans file civil suits against each actor in this Administration for the human and financial losses we've suffered, for the pain and suffering we've endured by having our civil liberties compromised and our constitution subverted, and for the damage to each American that has resulted from the world's disgust with our government's actions?
The criminal charges that I truly hope will follow from congressional investigations (please, please DO something with all the dirt you've gotten on these guys, Congress) are by no means assured of success. So thousands and thousands of civil suits against these people--hitting them in their wallets--might be the only way that any of these people receive any kind of punishment.
So go Iraquis. I am so sorry for all of the loved ones you have lost during these years. There's no comparison between your losses and what Americans have lost, but we, too, need some compensation for what we've lost--our belief in our democracy.
Dee Illuminati wrote on October 11, 2007 9:12 PM:Are we singing Kum Ba Ya yet? Till tomorrow let me give you an update:
If you are a US civilian in Iraq you are subject to federal jurisdiction, if you are an Iraqi civillian you are subject to military jurisdiction or the Iraqi Department of the interior. If you are in the US no warrant is required for FISA, and if you are in Iraq then it takes HOURS to get one. We singing Kum Ba Ya yet?? You all follow me know hear??? Jed clampet drawal~
If you are a GOP president you do not need congressional approval for 'hot pursuit' to attack inside another countries border, if you are in Turkey and the president you need congressional approval for a hot pursuit strike in Iraq!
We singing Kum Ba Ya?
The policies are so off the reservation that we now debate the lurid and insidious rhetoric that surrounds us as soundbites.
You know what you know, you know what I mean??
I think that long term this story has yawn all over it, and the truth be damned...
anonymouse wrote on October 11, 2007 11:21 PM:"Wouldn't it also be nice if we did something about accountability in the US"
Elected officials, as well as Civil Servants, are pretty much exempt from suits. What usually occrurs is a citizen will sue a department (the federal government, however, must give you permission to sue it, if I am not mistaken.
Suits are filed and won every day against city, county, state ,etc. but the money is payed by the taxpayers, not the official or civil servant.
"We the People" have turned over almost all our ability to control these clowns to the clowns themselves and we are now seeing the result...IMHO
J. R. Cram wrote on October 12, 2007 5:18 AM:The alternatives are as clear as a blue sky on the fourth of July:
1) Withdrawal from entangling military alliances and unilateral adventures.
or,
2) Reinstate conscription.
or,
3) Continued outsourcing to mercs.
Ron Paul is solid for #1. As far the other candidades, Dem or GOP, are concerned: "Who knows what evils lurk in the hearts of men (and women)?"
Come on, is it really that hard a choice?