Blackwater Guards Have Charges Dismissed

[twyacht]

http://www.witn.com/home/headlines/80433117.html

 Blackwater Charges Dropped
A federal judge has dismissed all charges against five Blackwater Worldwide security guards charged in a deadly Baghdad shooting.
Posted: 3:40 PM Dec 31, 2009

A federal judge has dismissed all charges against five Blackwater Worldwide security guards charged in a deadly Baghdad shooting.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina said Thursday the Justice Department overstepped its bounds and wrongly used evidence it was not allowed to see. He said the government's explanations have been contradictory, unbelievable and not credible.

Blackwater contractors were hired to guard State Department diplomats in Iraq. Prosecutors say the guards fired on unarmed civilians in a busy intersection in 2007, killing innocent people.

After the shooting, the guards gave statements to State Department investigators. Prosecutors were not allowed to use those statements in the case.

Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

***

Finally, a Judge that reviewed the case for what it was; an anti-Bush, anti-war, political leverage event used by good ol' Jack Murtha, Sen. Kerry, Pelosi, Reid, et,..al,...

Let them suck on this ruling.

Happy New Year to Them....

[tombogan03884]

 Haditha, now Blackwater, all defendants either found not guilty or charges dropped .
Can't wait for 2010.

[r_w]

GOOD.

I am not saying anything about the actual incident, but the attempt to prosecute them was a political clusterF***.

But it is the SEALS that really need vindication...

[Jackel]

who exactly were the prosecutors?

[1911 Junkie]

What about the guy that already plead guilty.

Does that just go away or is he screwed?

[Sponsor]

[tombogan03884]

He's screwed

[twyacht]

who exactly were the prosecutors?

from NY TIMES
The prosecutorial team was led by Kenneth C. Kohl, an assistant United States attorney. The Justice Department declined to make him available for comment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/02/us/02blackwater.html

Seems the Judge wrote a 90 page ruling just bashing the entire gov't handling of this case.
from article:
But Judge Urbina’s scathing and detailed review of the ways that crucial evidence and witnesses had been tainted by exposure to the defendants’ early statements — or to news media accounts based on them — appears likely to complicate any effort to ask an appeals court to overturn his opinion or to bring a new prosecution by a different legal team using any untainted evidence.

The judge also criticized prosecutors for withholding “substantial exculpatory evidence” from the grand jury that indicted the defendants, as well as for presenting “distorted versions” of witnesses’ testimony and improperly telling the grand jury that some incriminating statements had been made by the defendants but were being withheld.

***

If this ruling was the opposite, this would be on every MSM outlet, and how this was Bush's fault....I had to google this ruling to get something from a National Paper, instead of local outlets,...

[tombogan03884]

 It made the local papers here, I saw the headline this AM, but then on of the guys is from NH.