'An affront to justice': UN experts chide Trump pardon of Blackwater war criminals
US President Donald Trump's pardon of four American men convicted of massacring Iraqi civilians while working as military contractors in Iraq in 2007 has violated US obligations under international law, United Nations human rights experts said on Wednesday.
Nicholas Slatten was convicted of first-degree murder, while Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard were convicted of voluntary and attempted manslaughter over the incident, in which the contractors opened fire in busy traffic in a Baghdad square and killed 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians.
The four men, who worked for the private security firm Blackwater, owned by Erik Prince, brother of Trump's education secretary Betsy DeVos, were included in a wave of pre-Christmas pardons announced by the White House.
“Pardoning the Blackwater contractors is an affront to justice and to the victims of the Nisour Square massacre and their families,” Jelena Aparac, chair of the UN working group on the use of mercenaries, said in a statement.
The Geneva Conventions oblige states to hold war criminals accountable for their crimes, even when they act as private security contractors, the UN experts said.
"These pardons violate US obligations under international law and more broadly undermine humanitarian law and human rights at a global level."
The working group consists of five independent experts, who are appointed by the UN but who do not speak on behalf of the body.
"Pardons, amnesties or any other forms of exculpation for war crimes open doors to future abuses when states contract private military and security companies for inherent state functions," the statement said.
Last week, Mohammed Kinani, who spent more than a decade trying to bring the Blackwater contractors to justice for the slaying of his son Ali, said the pardons were an affront to America’s core principles.
"No one is above the law is what we learned in America, but now there's someone above the law,” he told Middle East Eye. "I don't know how this is allowed. I don't think that America is built on such principles."
The pardons were strongly criticised by many in the United States. General David Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, respectively commander of US forces and US ambassador in Iraq at the time of the incident, called Trump's pardons "hugely damaging, an action that tells the world that Americans abroad can commit the most heinous crimes with impunity".
In a statement announcing the pardons, the White House said the move was "broadly supported by the public" and backed by a number of Republican lawmakers.
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