Contractors in Iraq could face charges in earlier incidents [View All]

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Source: McClatchy

Contractors in Iraq could face charges in earlier incidents

By Nancy A. Youssef | McClatchy Newspapers


WASHINGTON — 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.


Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/56255.html