Blackwater trial: a faint memory of Nisoor Square

Ten weeks of testimony on the violence at Nisoor Square in September 2007 will come to an end as the case appears before a jury on Tuesday,

WASHINGTON // The summer-long trial of four Blackwater security guards in the shootings of more than 30 Iraqis has been a grim retelling of lives snuffed out and the daily life-and-death decisions amid the chaos of war.

Wrapping up almost 10,000 kilometres from Baghdad, the trial is the best hope the survivors and the families of the victims have for accountability for the violence at Nisoor Square on September 16, 2007.

After 10 weeks of arguments and testimony, the case was to go to the jury on Tuesday.

One of the guards, Nicholas Slatten, faces up to life imprisonment if convicted of first-degree murder. The other three – Paul Slough, Dustin Heard and Evan Liberty – face mandatory minimum sentences of 30 years in prison each if convicted on a gun charge and one other felony.

In the seven years it took to get the case to trial, the world has largely moved on. But for federal prosecutors seeking prison terms – and for the accused and their defence lawyers – the case comes down to a question of justice.

Lawyers for the four defendants have argued that insurgents fired on a Blackwater vehicle convoy in the square, prompting a justifiable response from the guards.

The prosecutors maintain there was no incoming gunfire at Nisoor Square that day.

To drive home the horror of permanently disabling gunshot wounds, the prosecutors had one Iraqi witness partially disrobe to show his injuries to the jury of eight women and four men. The 12-person panel includes a few military veterans and government employees.

Under gentle questioning by the prosecution, another witness bowed his head and wept uncontrollably as he described the killing of his nine-year-old son. After the gunfire stopped, the father said, he opened a back door on his car. His son’s brains fell out at his feet, he said.

“The world went dark for me,” he testified through an interpreter.

Among the victims was a potato farmer who had gone to Baghdad looking for work. He was wounded; two cousins with him were killed.

Other victims included a mother and her daughter who were in the Nisoor Square area applying for travel documents so they could visit holy sites. The mother’s last act before dying was to grab her daughter’s head and shelter it in her lap, likely saving her life.

Prosecutors summoned more than 60 witnesses, the defence just four.

* Associated Press