BAGHDAD, IRAQ- Iraqis reacted with outrage on Wednesday to outgoing US President Donald Trump’s decision to pardon four former US private security agents convicted of killing Iraqi civilians 13 years ago in Baghdad.
“I lost hope a long time ago,” Fares Saadi, the Iraqi police officer who was investigating the shootings in Nissour Square, a busy place in the Iraqi capital, told AFP.
“I remember it as if it were yesterday. I picked up people, took them to the hospital, took statements, but I knew we wouldn’t see justice,” he said over the phone.
One of the officers, Nicholas Slatten, was sentenced to life in prison.
The four Americans were convicted of participating in a shooting in Baghdad on September 16, 2007, a bloody episode that sparked an international scandal for exposing the US military’s use of private companies. This heightened Iraqis’ resentment towards the United States.
Fourteen Iraqi civilians were killed and 17 injured. Agents from the Blackwater company claimed to have acted in self-defense.
The Blackwater team, hired to ensure the safety of US diplomats in Iraq after the US invasion in 2003, claimed it responded to insurgent fire.
The US presidential pardon came just weeks after the International Criminal Court closed a preliminary investigation into alleged war crimes committed by British forces in Iraq after the invasion.
“The latest ruling confirms the violations of human rights and international law by these countries,” said Ali Bayati, a member of the Iraqi Human Rights Commission.
“They grant immunity to their soldiers, even though they claim to protect human rights. There has never been a trial of the dead in Baghdad,” he complained.