Judge: No Military Protection for Blackwater Lawyers

[maddezmom]

Judge: No Military Protection for Blackwater Lawyers
By Joe Palazzolo | November 16, 2009

Thedefendants, who have never asserted an inability to finance their own security measures, haveoffered to reimburse or defray the government for the cost of providing such security measures.The government opposes the motion, noting that it has already provided the defendants with alist of private security companies licensed to operate in Iraq and that are principal providers ofsecurity services for U.S. government personnel in Baghdad. Furthermore, the governmentargues that this court lacks the authority to order the U.S. military to divert personnel and otherresources from its current mission in Iraq to provide security to the defense team.Lawyers for a group of former Blackwater guards accused of voluntary manslaughter will not be protected by the U.S. military when they go to Iraq to prepare for trial, a federal judge ruled Monday.

The lawyers requested a military detail similar to that afforded to federal prosecutors and agents as they put together their case against the five former guards, who are charged in the September 2007 shooting deaths of 17 Iraqis in a crowded square in Baghdad.

Justice Department lawyers had called the request “radical” and unnecessary.

Judge Ricardo Urbina, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, said the guards’ lawyers, “who never asserted an inability to finance their own security measures,” did not show that private security companies operating in Iraq could not ensure their safety.

more:http://www.mainjustice.com/2009/11/16/judge-no-military-protection-for-blackwater-lawyers/

good decision, IMO.

[TexasObserver]

1. Recommend - because these mercenaries must be made to account.

If we fail to correct these misdeeds and publicly rebuke them, we remain culpable along with the perps. The rebukes must be strong.

[pleah]

2. K&R

[winyanstaz]

3. The whole Blackwater organization and all like them...

must be brought to trial and taken down. NO MORE PAID KILLERS!!!
It is just WRONG.