U.S. Charges Contractor at Iraq Post in Stabbing
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
Published: April 5, 2008
BAGHDAD — The American military has charged a contractor with assault in a case that may emerge as a major test of the military’s legal jurisdiction over civilians who accompany the armed forces into the field, military officials and legal experts said Friday.
The charge was made under expanded authority that the United States Congress provided the military to crack down on contractor abuses. It is the first time since 1968 that a contractor has been charged under military law.
While the exact scope of the new authority has yet to be tested in court, experts said there might be some circumstances in which it could be interpreted to apply to security contractors, like those supplied by Blackwater.
The contractor in the coming case, Alaa Mohammad Ali, was working as an interpreter at a combat outpost near Hit, a town in Anbar Province. He was accused of stabbing a fellow contractor with a knife in the chest and sternum on Feb. 23. He was detained at Camp Victory, an American military base near the Baghdad airport, later that month. According to military officials, Mr. Ali has Canadian and Iraqi citizenship. A pretrial hearing has been scheduled for Thursday, at which an Army officer will determine whether there is sufficient evidence to support the charge.
“It is an important case because it is a test of the permissible limits of military criminal jurisdiction,” said Eugene R. Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, a nonprofit organization.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/05/world/middleeast/05trial.html?_r=1&ex=1365134400&en=4b4303b514652f91&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin
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