Journalist Jeremy Scahill on this week's Blackwater guilty verdicts
Four private guards with the American security firm Blackwater, have been found guilty in the deaths of Iraqi civilians. Seventeen unarmed people were killed in central Baghdad in September 2007. A federal jury handed down their guilty verdict this week in Washington. After, As It Happens host Carol Off spoke with Jeremy Scahill, author of "Blackwater: The Rise of the...
Four private guards with the American security firm Blackwater, have been found guilty in the deaths of Iraqi civilians. Seventeen unarmed people were killed in central Baghdad in September 2007. A federal jury handed down their guilty verdict this week in Washington. After, As It Happens host Carol Off spoke with Jeremy Scahill, author of "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army."
The charges range from manslaughter to first degree murder.
Scahill tells Carol that despite the guilty verdicts against the four Blackwater guards, he laments that Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater remains untouched.
"[Erik Prince] wrote a book recently, it did quite well, he was on a book tour, he appeared on all the popular American talk shows and was almost never asked a critical question...so he's walking around a free man, he's still a very wealthy man...a few of his guys are going to go to jail, but...it's always the people lowest down the rung that get hit with the charges while the bosses walk around and write memoirs".
Blackwater has since undergone a series of name changes. In 2009, it was renamed "Xe Services." And, in 2011, it was called "Academi."
Blackwater has since undergone a series of name changes. In 2009, it was renamed "Xe Services." And, in 2011, it was called "Academi."