Prosecutions Against Blackater Security Guards Are Collapsing

Efforts To Prosecute Blackwater Are Collapsing -- New York Times

WASHINGTON — Nearly four years after the federal government began a string of investigations and criminal prosecutions against Blackwater Worldwide personnel accused of murder and other violent crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, the cases are beginning to fall apart, burdened by a legal obstacle of the government’s own making.

In the most recent and closely watched case, the Justice Department on Monday said that it would not seek murder charges against Andrew J. Moonen, a Blackwater armorer accused of killing a guard assigned to an Iraqi vice president on Dec. 24, 2006. Justice officials said that they were abandoning the case after an investigation that began in early 2007, and included trips to Baghdad by federal prosecutors and F.B.I. agents to interview Iraqi witnesses.

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My Comment: If the Justice Department cannot prosecute Blackwater security guards, what chance do they have in prosecuting most of the inmates in Guantanamo. Bottom line .... crimes in war zones are very difficult to prosecute .... which is why their prosecutions are usually done within military courts and not civilian ones. As for Blackwater .... they operate in war zones, and the nature of their work will result in fatalities that maybe could have been avoided. Should they be prosecuted .... definitely .... but military courts should be the ones involved in prosecuting these cases.