http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2007/11/blackwater_lawsuit_says_order.phpBlackwater lawsuit says order ignored
Lawsuit Claims Blackwater Guards Abandoned Post on Day of Shootings, Used Steroids
LARA JAKES JORDAN
AP News
Nov 27, 2007 16:44 EST
A lawsuit against government contractor Blackwater Worldwide accuses its bodyguards of ignoring a direct order and abandoning their post shortly before taking part in a shooting in Baghdad that killed 17 Iraqi civilians.
Filed this week in U.S. District Court in Washington, the complaint also accuses North Carolina-based Blackwater of failing to give drug tests to its guards in Baghdad — even though an estimated one in four of them was using steroids or other "judgment altering substances."
A Blackwater spokeswoman said Tuesday its employees are banned from using steroids or other enhancement drugs but declined to comment on the other charges detailed in the 18-page lawsuit.
The lawsuit was filed Monday on behalf of five Iraqis who were killed and two who were injured during the Sept. 16 shooting in Baghdad's Nisoor Square. The Justice Department is investigating whether it can bring criminal charges in the case that has enraged the Iraqi government, even though the State Department promised limited immunity to the Blackwater guards.
The three teams of an estimated dozen Blackwater bodyguards had already dropped off the State Department official they were tasked with protecting when they headed to Nisoor Square, according to the lawsuit filed by lawyers working with the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Blackwater and State Department personnel staffing a tactical operations center "expressly directed the Blackwater shooters to stay with the official and refrain from leaving the secure area," the complaint says. "Reasonable discovery will establish that the Blackwater shooters ignored those directives."