"So much of federal prosecutions depend on the Court being able to rely on the credibility of federal prosecutors. There's no reason for courts to do that any longer and we all will suffer because of the unethical behavior of a series of [DOJ] lawyers who simply refuse to follow their professional responsibility", Clarice Feldman at American Thinker, 1 January 2010, link:
"The sudden blow to the case against the former Blackwater security guards over a shooting that killed 17 Iraqis and wounded at least 20 may have come as a surprise to the public in Iraq and the [US], but the legal problem that the judge cited Thursday when he threw out the indictments was obvious to American government lawyers within days of the shooting. The issue was that the guards, as government contractors, were obligated to give an immediate report of what they had done, but the Constitution prevents the government from requiring a defendant to testify against himself, so those statements could not be used in a prosecution. ... The prosecutors were also concerned, even when using qwhat they called a 'taint team' to try to prevent information in the guards' compulsory statements from influencing the investigation, according to the 90-page ruling by Judge Ricardo M. Urbina of the Federal District Court in Washington. The judge said the prosecutors had failed to take 'coomon sense precautions' to avoid the problem. The ruling led to disappointment in the [US] as in Iraq. ... Judge Urbina's decision would make it difficult for prosecutors to reinstate the original charges. Information that the guards were required to give immediately after the shootings was deeply woven into the governments effort to secure the indictments, he wrote. ... Investigators did not find physical evidence of an attack by Iraqis, the judge's decision said. ... But in their presentations to the second grand jury, the prosecutors also edited out evidence that suggested that the guards were firing in self-defense, the judge said, and those omissions were improper", my emphasis, Matthew Wald at the NYT, 2 January 2010: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/02/us/02legal.html.
"Iraqis seeking justice for 17 people shot dead at a Baghdad intersection responded with bitterness and outrage Friday at a US judge's decision to throw out a case against a Blackwater security team accused in the killings. The Iraqi government vowed to pursue the case, which became a source of contention between the US and the Iraqi government", my emphasis, Rebecca Santana at the Houston Chronicle, 2 January 2010.
"The dismissal of charges against five Blackwater Worldwide security guards accused by the [DOJ] of recklessly shooting in a Baghdad traffic circle in 2007 potentially strains US-Iraqi relations at a critical moment and raises new questions for the Obama administration about effective legal ovesight of battlefield contractors. ... 'Investigations conducted by specialized Iraqi authorities confirmed unequivocally that the Blackwater guards committed the crime of murder and broke the rules by using arms without the existence of any threat obliging them to use force, Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement, the AP reported", my emphasis, August Cole at the WSJ, 2 January 2010, link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126229226969112429.html.
The DOJ's Blackwater Five (BF) case stank from the start. It had problems with: evidence, chain of custody, crime scene control and witness statements. Lastly, any statement by a Moslem with respect to non-Moslem matters must be viewed through the lens of takiwa and Sharia's blood money concept. My conclusion: the DOJ brought this case for political purposes to ingratiate the Bush administration with Iraq. What would the DOJ have done if the case was tried and the BF were acquitted? Call the jurors stupid?
Did the DOJ immediately dispatch CSI NY's incorruptible Gary Sinese to Iraq to "control the crime scene" and collect evidence? There was no "physical evidence of an attack by Iraqis". So? The Iraqi investigators destroyed it. In my opinion. A decent defense attorney would have made mincemeat of the DOJ's case if it went to trial. This was a political prosecution. That's my bottom line. The State Department saw the BF as "expendibles". My surprise was that Urbina had the cojones to throw the indictment out. I wouldn't have, but forced the case to trial and ruled against the DOJ on evidence issue after evidence issue. Then empanel the jury and let the DOJ's case collapse. In public. Urbina did the DOJ a favor by dismissing the indictment. It kept the DOJ's dirty laundry from the public. In some schools of Islamic jurisprudence a kaffir may not even testify against a Moslem! Why should we credit anything an Iraqi says? "This declaration defines human rights according to Islamic law, which prohibits critcism of Islam. Indeed, Iraq's US-enabled 2004 constitution enshrines Islamic law above all. Little wonder Iraq consistently votes at the United Nations with the OIS and against the [US] on this key ideological divide between Islam and the West, most recently in November. ... Guess we're supposed to look the other way. But that's like applauding the Status of Force Agreement (SOFA) between the [US] and Iraq without noticing that the agreement prohibits the [US from attacking Iran (or any other country) from Iraq", Diana West at Townhall, 29 December 2009, link:
Big deal. Outrage. What is outrageous is that this case was ever brought.
Who were these "specialized" authorities? Iraq's answer to Saudi Arabia's mutwain, operating under Sharia's rules of evidence? Our Iraq "excursion" has been a total failure. That we would concern ourselves with relations with Iraq shows we wasted $700 billion and 5,000 lives. It is inconceivable to Iraqis that dhimmi could ever be justified to shoot Moslems. Get over it.
