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| Brothers Ameer (l.) and Ahmed Raed lost their best friend, cousin, and band mate, Ahmed Haythem al-Rubaie, in a Sept. 16 shooting
in Baghdad involving Blackwater USA. Sam Dagher |
In contractors' shootings, Iraqis search for justice
The US Embassy in Iraq is now offering to pay relatives of those killed in a shooting involving Blackwater USA.
from the October 25, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 4
The drive for justice in Iraq
Rubaie says he was urged by a State Department official he met on Saturday to put a dollar figure on his loss.
"I asked him if the price would differ if those killed were Americans," he says. "I gave him an astronomical number and insisted that I write on the form that I retain the right to file a lawsuit. My life has been shattered."
Rubaie's son, Ahmed, was reportedly the first to be shot in the Blackwater incident. He probably encountered the guards as they entered a roundabout going against traffic. They were attempting to evacuate a US diplomat caught in a nearby bombing.
Ahmed was driving his mother, a dermatologist, for errands in western Baghdad after dropping off his father, a physician specializing in blood diseases, at work. His friends remember the third-year medical student as popular and energetic, who loved soccer and singing in Spanish with his guitar band. Rubaie still aches with sorrow for his wife, Mahasen. The two were college sweethearts who met in Baghdad while in medical school. They were married soon after graduation.
For Hafidh, who lost his young son, the shooting "was a nightmare. I saw them shoot at people who were already dead over and over again."
He says the FBI paid him $3,500 a week ago in compensation for his damaged car that was being withheld for the investigation. In a previous interview with a State Department official last week, Hafidh wrote on a claims form that he wanted $15 million in total compensation, an apology from Blackwater, and assistance to leave the country with his wife and three other children.
Blackwater declined comment for this article. In an interview with CNN on Oct. 14, Blackwater's founder, Erik Prince, said he could not be subjected to Iraqi justice because there is no such thing. "In the ideal sense, we would be subject to the Iraqi law, but that would mean … there was a functioning Iraqi court system where Westerners would actually get a fair trial…. That's not the case right now."
He said Blackwater was accountable under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
The US military, which conducted its own investigation, also refused comment for the article, despite having said in the past that there was no evidence that Blackwater was shot at by insurgents that day as it claims.
Susan Burke, the lead counsel in a civil suit against Blackwater filed in Washington earlier this month, says this makes it possible for the Department of Defense to file a criminal suit against the shooters and the company in America.
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