That said a panel of the United Nations on Wednesday President Trump
Donald Trump signed audit in Georgia finds no fraud in presidential election Pompeo calls for release of Chinese journalist imprisoned for coronavirus reportingThe pardon for several former Blackwater contractors who had been convicted of killing more than a dozen civilians in Baghdad was in violation of international law.
Reuters reported that the UN task force on the use of mercenaries condemned the action in a statement, calling Trump’s decision to pardon the four men an insult to justice and an insult to the memory of the dead.
“To forgive the Blackwater contractors is an insult to the courts and to the victims of the Nisour Square massacre and their families,” said the group’s chairman, Jelena Aparac, according to the news agency.
“These pardons violate US obligations under international law and more broadly undermine humanitarian law and human rights at the global level,” Aparac continued.
Trump moved last week to pardon the four men, along with a handful of former GOP congressmen and a number of loyalists close to his 2016 campaign.
The pardon for the former Blackwater contractors met harsh criticism from General David Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the top US officials responsible for US policy in Iraq at the time of the 2007 killings, who called it “ hugely damaging, ” an action it tells the world that Americans abroad can commit the most heinous crimes with impunity ”in a joint statement obtained by Reuters.
The private security company, now known as Academi, was heavily criticized for the 2007 incident and as a result lost the country’s government permit to operate in Iraq. The company has also faced allegations of other human rights violations as a result of the WikiLeaks release of thousands of documents related to the Iraq War in 2010.