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WASHINGTON – The US government's 10-year attempt to sue four Blackwater contractors for the attack on dozens of unarmed Iraqis in 2007, a case that became a symbol of US power during the war in Iraq. tainted Wednesday The new trial of a security guard ended with an outstanding jury.
Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the District Court of the District of Columbia District, declared the trial of former Blackwater entrepreneur Nicholas A. Slatten after a 16-day judgment-free trial.
The blocked jury was the latest version of the government saga to hold people accountable for the shooting at Baghdad's Nisour Square, in which at least 31 people were killed or wounded by machine guns and grenades. circle.
The shooting was one of the darkest moments of the war in Iraq, with the scandal of abuses inflicted on Abu Ghraib and the massacre of civilians in Haditha. This has sparked conflict between Washington and Baghdad, with the Bush White House fighting to prevent entrepreneurs from being prosecuted in Iraq and asking Iraqis to trust the US judicial system.
Last year, a Washington court of appeal rejected Mr Slatten's conviction and ordered a new trial. The court said he should not have been prosecuted alongside his three Blackwater colleagues and another security officer – who said that he, not Mr. Slatten, had fired the first shots of fire – undermined the government's cause.
"The government's case against Slatten was based on the fact that he fired the first shots," the court said, adding that "the statements of the co-defendant were at the heart of this theory."
A spokesman for the US prosecutor's office in Washington, who ruled the case, said the prosecutors were reviewing the results of the new trial, but had no further comment.
The shooting, which was compared to the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, also prompted the US military to stop recruiting private contractors and erode the powerful relationship between Blackwater and the government, particularly diplomats at the time. # 39; abroad.
During the new five-week trial, prosecutors again alleged that Mr. Slatten had incited the fray by firing the first shot without provocation. His lawyer, Dane Butswinkas, responded with the testimony of Mr. Slatten's colleague, who contradicted the government saying he shot first. He also accused the government of withholding evidence, a charge dismissed by a US deputy lawyer, Patrick Martin.
The jury of the new trial told Lamberth JA last week that he was deadlocked and asked them to try and decide after the long weekend of Labor Day. The jury of seven women and five men was finally unable to make a decision.
The same court of appeal, which called for a new trial for 34-year-old Slatten, also handed down 30-year jail sentences for three of his colleagues, Dustin L. Heard, Evan S. Liberty, and Paul A. Slough. They were tried with Mr. Slatten in 2014 and were found guilty of willful homicide and machine gun to commit a violent crime.
The Court of Appeal stated that the length of their sentences violated the constitutional prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. The submachine gun charges were punishable by 30 years' imprisonment, which controversial charge to bear against men.
Their resentments were postponed after Mr. Slatten's new trial.
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