Evan Liberty, one of the four former Blackwater contractors pardoned per President Trump
Donald Trump Trump says Georgia Senate removals are “illegal and invalid” in New Year’s tweets. The judge rejects Gohmert’s election lawsuit against former Sen. Pence, a former Republican senator, suggests forming a new party, and calls Trump a “ring master.” last month for his roles in the killings of more than a dozen unarmed Iraqi civilians in 2007, he said in his first interview since he was released from prison that he believed he “acted correctly.”
Liberty said, the nearly 30-year sentence of which was halved last year The Associated Press this week that his actions were justifiable, adding that he and the other contractors “responded to a threat accordingly.”
“I feel like I acted right,” he said of the 2007 incident. “I’m sorry for any innocent loss of life, but I just trust how I acted and I can basically feel at peace with that.”
Blackwater guards have continued to argue that they were attacked by insurgent gunfire, although prosecutors said there was no evidence to support this account, as many victims were shot while in their cars at the roundabout where the shooting took place or while they were trying to flee the scene.
A 2014 jury convicted Liberty, along with Dustin Heard, Nicholas Slatten and Paul Slough, of killing 14 Iraqi civilians and injuring several others, and the trial judge described the shootings as “totally wild stuff” that is not can accept.
The company Blackwater, whose name has since changed Academy, was founded by former SEAL sailor Erik Prince, whose sister, Betsy DeVos
Betsy DeVosTrump’s pardons complete the mistakes of the “Blackwater” pardons criticizing the benefits of political allies Klobuchar: Trump “tries to burn this country out” MORE, is Trump’s secretary of education.
Several groups condemned Trump’s pardon to Blackwater contractors, noting that Trump used a presidential power historically reserved for nonviolent crimes. In addition, as noted by the PA, the traditional pardon process led by the Department of Justice values acceptance of responsibility and remorse of convicts.
On Wednesday, the UN working group on the use of mercenaries said Trump forgave contractors violated international law.
“Pardoning Blackwater contractors is an affront to justice and to the victims of the Nisour Square massacre and their families,” the group’s president, Jelena Aparac, told Reuters.
In a joint statement obtained by Reuters, retired General David Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the top U.S. officials in charge of U.S. policy in Iraq at the time of the 2007 assassinations, described the pardons as “hugely damaging.” “An action that tells the world that Americans abroad can commit the most heinous crimes with impunity.”