A legal danger zone for Blackwater (How they can be prosecuted)

[n2doc]

The contractor and other US firms working in Iraq could be subject to prosecution from several quarters.

By Brad Knickerbocker | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the September 21, 2007 edition


The recent killing of Iraqi civilians by private American security contractors reveals one of the biggest changes in modern US war-fighting – its increased reliance on private companies. It also illustrates difficult questions about the legal standing of those workers that are just starting to be understood.

The nub of the problem: how to deal with civilian contractors who break the law in a seemingly lawless place.

Legal tools to prosecute such wrongdoing are available, experts say. But the relevant US government agencies have been slow to use them.

"There is a basis for the US Department of Justice to conduct an investigation and bring charges under MEJA," says Kevin Lanigan, a New York lawyer and law professor who served as a US Army Reserve judge advocate in Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. MEJA is the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 2000, which authorizes the Justice Department to prosecute employees of US contractors and subcontractors who commit crimes on foreign soil.

The Uniform Code of Military Justice, the legal system governing those in uniform, was amended by Congress last year to allow charges to be brought against civilian contractors, Mr. Lanigan also notes. But the Pentagon has yet to issue guidelines to military commanders on how to do this, according to Lanigan and others.

much more:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0921/p03s03-woiq.html

[Solly Mack]

1. Yep yep...that's what the CRS report (2007) said but it also

concluded that such was unlikely to happen as the necessary groups weren't acting (DOJ, Pentagon)

I read and posted about the report the other day

[scarface2004]

2. then its time to eff over blackwater with meja!!

and hang those bastards in the square where sadam s statue used to stand!

[Jed Dilligan]

3. They're civilians, why not prosecute under Iraqi law?

It gave Saddam what they deserve.