A lawyer who represented the family of a child killed by US government contractors during the Iraq War described President Donald Trump’s decision to grant pardons to four of the men involved as “unscrupulous”.
Ali Kinani, nine, was among at least 14 people killed in Baghdad’s Nisour Square on September 16, 2007 by Blackwater private security contractors assigned to protect a US diplomatic convoy.
Military veterans Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard were convicted in 2014 by a U.S. federal court of manslaughter, attempted murder and other charges and sentenced to 12 to 15 years. Nicholas Slatten, the first to shoot, was sentenced to life in prison.
But on Tuesday, the White House announced in a statement that Trump had forgiven the four in an action he said was “widely supported by the public”, adding that the men “have a long history of serving the nation”.
Ali Kinani was 9 years old when he was shot in the head by Blackwater guards on September 16, 2007 in Baghdad, Iraq. @realDonaldTrump he just forgave his killers. I represented Ali’s family and five other families in a civil lawsuit against Blackwater and Erik Prince for the deaths. pic.twitter.com/B2dwbjU4Ub
– A damn lawyer (@adamnlawyer) December 23, 2020
Paul Dickinson, a civil litigation attorney in Charlotte, North Carolina, for the law firm James Scott Farrin, represented Ali’s family, as well as four families of other victims, in a civil suit.
“President Trump forgave a child killer,” said Dickinson Newsweek.
Dickinson said that after years of legal procedures, trials, appeals, he dropped the charges and retrials, when the convictions were secured, the victims’ families he represented “were satisfied that they felt they had achieved some justice beyond the financial recovery that I was able to obtain for them – some criminal justice.
“I am very confident that they are disappointed in the United States today,” he said.
Prosecutors said the Blackwater company’s Raven 23 convoy, which was renamed Academi, launched an unprovoked attack on an unarmed crowd using sniper shots, machine guns and grenade launchers.
Among the dead are 10 men, two women and another 11-year-old boy. Iraqi authorities estimate the total death toll at 17, the BBC reported.
Defense lawyers said the group responded to the fire after being ambushed by Iraqi insurgents. However, in the indictment issued by a grand jury in 2008, the US District Attorney for the District of Columbia said that “none of the victims of this shooting were armed” and that “none of them were insurgent”, The Washington Post reported.
Dickinson said Newsweek: “When the White House statement says that the situation became violent, the situation became violent because of what those men did – not because of anything that happened around them. Although they may have served with honor, they committed heinous crimes that day. “
“President Trump repeatedly talks about law and order and holds people accountable for the crimes they commit and yet when these four men are reasonably convicted of murder, manslaughter and gun charges, and the death of a boy nine years old, he allows them to be free. “
“I think it is unfair that they are forgiven,” he added.
The men’s forgiveness was also condemned by Human Rights Watch and the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR), which said it would encourage others to commit similar crimes. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) tweeted, “Forgiving these killers is a shame. They shot women and children with their hands up.”
The Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs urged the United States government to reconsider the decision, tweeting that it “did not take into account the seriousness of the crime committed and was inconsistent with the United States government’s stated commitment to the values of human rights, justice and rule of law. “
Press release
The Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs followed up on the decision issued by the President of the United States of America, Mr. Donald Trump, to pardon several of those convicted of killing fourteen Iraqis and injuring others in 2007, pic.twitter.com/21gGWArJUl
– وزارة الخارجية العراقية (@Iraqimofa) December 23, 2020
He added that he also “regrettably ignores the dignity of the victims and the feelings and rights of their families”.
Ali Kinani’s father Mohammed, who moved to the U.S. to bring the group to justice, said Eye of the Middle East after he learned of the pardons: “Nobody is above the law is what we learn in America, but now there is someone above the law.”
“I don’t know how this is allowed. I don’t think America is built on these principles,” he told the media, “but there must be a way. If not in the earthly courts, then with God. God. them go. “
Trump has faced criticism for using his powers of clemency. On Wednesday, he pardoned several allies, including his former advisers Roger Stone and Paul Manafort.
Newsweek contacted the White House for comment.
ALI YUSSEF / Getty Images