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US firm 'has criminal record'
22/09/2007 18:38 - (SA)
Bushra Juhi
Baghdad - Iraq's Interior Ministry has expanded its investigation into other incidents allegedly involving Blackwater USA security guards amid the furore following a deadly shooting that claimed at least 11 lives, a spokesperson said on Saturday.
Maj Gen Abdul-Karim Khalaf said the US security company has been implicated in six other incidents over the past seven months, including a February 7 shooting outside Iraqi state television in Baghdad, when three TV building guards were fatally shot.
Other incidents include a September 9 shooting in front of Baghdad's municipality, when five people were killed and 10 wounded, and a September 12 shooting that wounded five on the capital's Palestine Street, Khalaf said.
The others were a February 4 shooting near the Foreign Ministry when Iraqi journalist Hana al-Ameedi died, a May shooting by a petrol station near the Interior Ministry that claimed the life of a passer-by, and a February 14 incident when the company's contractors allegedly smashed windshields by throwing bottles of ice water at cars.
"These six cases will support the case against Blackwater, because they show that it has a criminal record," Khalaf told The Associated Press.
An Interior Ministry report into the September 16 shooting at Baghdad's Nisoor square has been handed to the country's judiciary, Khalaf added. But it was not clear if Iraqi courts can raise charges against Blackwater, whose personnel enjoy immunity from law here.
Khalaf has earlier suggested only the guards involved in Sunday's incident be prosecuted, not the entire company.
The Interior Ministry report was based on testimonies of wounded on Nisoor Square, Iraqi policemen accounts from the scene and video footage from a camera at the police headquarters nearby, he said. It concluded Blackwater guards were not attacked and initiated the shooting, first killing a driver who had failed to heed a traffic policeman's call to stop.
An arrogant mercenary force
Iraqi witnesses have said that other victims were fatally shot when they abandoned their vehicles in panic and tried to run or crawl to safety. Blackwater has said its guards were returning fire from armed insurgents and acted appropriately.
According to Khalaf, eight died at the scene and 15 were wounded, three of whom later died in hospital. He said other security companies have "committed violations" in Iraq but all "apologised for these violations, met the families of the victims and compensated them, something Blackwater hasn't done".
The killing outraged many Iraqis, who have long resented the presence of armed Western security contractors, considering them an arrogant mercenary force that abuses Iraqis in their own country.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who is in New York, said he would discuss the case with US President George W Bush next week on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meetings.
Authorities in Anbar province, meanwhile, announced the arrests of 25 people linked to the assassination of the leader of the US-backed revolt by Sunni Arab tribesmen in the western Anbar province against al-Qaeda in Iraq.
The detainees included the head of the security detail that was supposed to protect Sheik Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, killed in a bombing on September 13 at his compound near Ramadi, 115km west of Baghdad, said Lt Col Jubeir Rashid, an Iraqi police officer in Anbar.
Rashid said Abu Risha's security chief, Capt Karim al-Barghothi, confessed and said al-Qaeda in Iraq had offered him US$1.5m for the slaying, but he was arrested before he could collect the money.
According to Rashid's account, al-Barghothi allowed a suicide car bomber into the compound minutes before Abu Risha was due to enter. The bomber pretended to be parking but detonated his explosives as the tribal leader's vehicle passed about 20 yards away, Rashid said.
Another suspect confessed to filming the operation, he said.
- AP
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